Window blinds are one of the most common things that you probably use every day, but have you ever wondered how they work? The mechanism is hidden up at the top, but today we’re going to solve a few mysteries such as what happens when you twist the wand or what happens when you pull on the strings.
Horizontal blinds are the most common type of blinds and the slats are usually made of materials such as wood, aluminum, vinyl, PVC, or plastic. These strings are called the lift strings and they go up and come back down through holes in each slat. Pull these strings to lift the blinds.
The wand is used to rotate the slats and they rest on support rungs, which helps to rotate them and space them evenly apart. The front board is called the valance and it houses the inner-workings of the window blinds. The two lift strings go right through the bottom, along the inside, and one string goes down here, and the other goes down here. For larger blinds, there might even be three or more lift strings.
When the lift strings are pulled, the slats start to rise. It’s important to pull all the strings at the same time. If you miss a string, you’ll end up with lopsided blinds. If we want our blind to stay up, we pull the cords to the side and then let go. If the cords are over here and we let go, the blinds will come right back down.
The secret of moving the cord to the left or the right lies in the cord lock mechanism. Both strings go up through the hole in the bottom. There are two rollers, the large one is fixed in place and the small roller can slide up and down. First, we pull the strings and the blinds go up. When we’re done pulling, we move the strings away from the blinds and then release the cord. As we do this, the friction of the strings against the roller causes the roller to slide up, which will then pinch the strings. Now it’s stuck, which is why our blinds are held up.
When we want to let the blinds down, we move the cord to the center of the blinds, pull the string just a little, the small roller comes down, and then release the string and watch as the blinds go all the way down. Some blinds will have the lift strings and the cord lock on the other side of the headrail, which means the mechanism would then be reversed.
By turning the wand, the string ladders are pulled to tilt the blinds. The wand is attached to the wand tilt mechanism. As the wand turns, so does this tiny rod, which has a worm gear at the end of it. You can see that this slowly turns the center gear. In the middle of this is the tilt rod, which rotates along with the gear.
The tilting of the blinds is now replaced with two strings that are wrapped around the spool. So when you pull one of the strings it rotates it. If the blinds in your home ever break, you might be tempted to just replace the whole thing. That might not be the best choice, though. Whatever part is broken might be easily fixed or replaced.
The folks at FixMyBlinds.com are ready and willing to help you out. Their website helps determine what type of blinds you have and then figure out what the problem is to help you identify the part you need to fix or replace, and then they help you do it yourself with easy-to-understand videos right on their website.
Now that you know how blinds work, you can appreciate the intricacy of the mechanism and the magic of how the slats lift and tilt so seamlessly.