A very nice for profit site. Their business model seems to be selling parts for repairing window blinds, but the site is a treasure trove of information on the topic of window blinds, and the design of the site, organization and presentation of information regarding this specialized topic are beautiful. Just wanted to share it, no affiliation.
NB: despite the richness of information, the site fails to help me because it's missing info on the specific type of blinds I was interested in ;)
Window shutters are often used as/instead of window blinds
in Europe. The linked site sadly doesn't seem to cover shutters yet, presumably because they're not popular in the USA currently. EDIT: possible explanation by another commenter - "They're hella illegal in America because of weird fire code rules": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38845794
Shutters are complicated, as they are really are several different things.
For example, interior venetian shutters are closely related to blinds, but are not especially common in the US. Blinds with slats (venetian blinds) can perform a similar function, but can be raised to prevent any blocking of view, while interior venetian style shutters usually swing open and require additional wall-space. such shutters might win on maximum amount of light blocking (even vs wooden slat blinds) but that will vary by shutter design. Cost is certainly a major factor of them being uncommon (but far from unheard of, we even have multiple different names for them) in much of the US.
Roller shutters could be considered an exterior equivalent to roller blinds (or roller shades), although roller shutters are often designed with proper blackout capability, which most blinds and shades lack. I presume cost is one of the major reasons these are rare in the US.
The main reason for using external blinds is heat - in Spain in the summer you want the sun to be hitting a blind outside of your window, not inside it. If you only have an inside blind then it still heats up and warms up the room.
Are you talking about shutters on the exterior or the interior? I have plantation shutters in my house, as do several of my middle-America neighbors. Exterior shutters in these parts are almost always decorative.
I like the look, ease of tilting the louvers up and down and, most importantly, they are dead simple to clean. But they were not cheap and not easy to install. I could have had high quality fabric shades for half the cost and spent one-third the time on installation.
Edit: Maybe its particular to what I installed (Veneta) but good luck fix a single louver if one breaks. The frame which contains them is either glued or very tightly press-fit. I'm not saying it would be impossible but you'd need to be careful and probably need to build some sort of jig for re-assembly.
Plantation shutters are very common on older houses in the South. They’re also pretty common on higher end newer houses. I love them and had them installed when we moved into our current house a couple years ago.
I am facing exactly this repair now. My method is to modify one side of the vane so that a pin can be press fit/glued into the vane from the side and covered with a glued plug. This can be done in-place when needed. It's not completely invisible but putty and a little brushwork make it almost so.
This is near and dear to my own lived experience, having dealt with what should have been a minor fix for Hunter Douglas blinds.
The cord that was attached to the clutch broke and got caught in the mechanism itself. When I disassembled the clutch to retrieve the cord, an internal spring came dislodged and twisted causing the clutch to never function correctly again.
Understanding exactly which part I needed replaced, I contacted Hunter Douglas, who told me to talk to a local rep. My local rep told me they couldn't repair this issue, and I would need to box up my entire window shade and sent it in. The cost was something around $200 for a repair.
I spent a lot of time scouring the internet and came across this site where I purchased the entire clutch for around $30. 5 minutes of swapping a good part for bad and I was back in action.
At least near me, HD repair is usually based on the area of the blinds; I have this unholy-huge 6.5' x 6' blind that the local HD shop wants $1000 to fix ... what I think is the clutch? (Just going off the troubleshooting section.) If I can fix it, myself, for $30, I'll be pretty stoked.
My Hoover carpet cleaner stopped working sometime in the past few months (between uses). The suction would start up, but the "motor" part of it would not turn on when I went to use it. I disassembled it (as much as it's designed to be disassembled – no unscrewing things) looking for jams or clogs. Nothing. I called Hoover, but gave up after ~45 minutes on hold waiting to talk to a real person.
On a lark, I searched for my issue "Hoover Carpet Cleaner Won't Spin". I found this[0] video. Apparently, the spinning bit can get stuck if moisture get trapped somewhere inside (who would've thought with it being all about moisture?), which causes the main rotary portion to stop working. A simple hex-bit force-turn sorted it out in 20 seconds.
I don't know what I would've done had I not stumbled on this issue, but the way things are today, I suspect most people would've thought "I guess it's broken", taken it to a landfill, and simply gone out to buy a new one.
It's a real shame that there's so much focus on "every person who owns an ICE needs to immediately drop $30,000+ on an electric vehicle", when there's so much opportunity in the "let's try to fix our stuff instead of dumping it" category. #righttorepair
There is almost nothing as satisfying to me as being able to fix appliances. I've fixed a few issues with my dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer with just a little gumption and willingness to fuck around. In 2 of the last 3 cases I can think of, I didn't even need a new part - just had to mess around a bit to discover the issue. I fixed a non-functional agitator on my washing machine by just finding a stuck actuator, fixed a broken pump on my dishwasher by disassembling it and removing a stuck bit of plastic. My last dryer repair needed parts, but those only cost $30, and a dryer is a very simple machine.
If I'd had to call a repairman or buy a new unit every time one of these problems happened, I'd have spent thousands of dollars.
That last line is the reason everything is disposable, things got too cheap to be worth hiring someone to fix them.
A $30k car? You'll pay a mechanic to fix that, it's too valuable an asset to just throw away (and even then, you see people selling cars with "something broken" that is not economical _for them_ to fix, but if you know how to fix it you can get a car cheap).
A $500-1k wash machine? Unlikely to be worth the $100-200 to bring out a repairman (because now you're looking at a $200 "discount" on a new one, which is probably much more "advanced" (if that's good) than the existing), so it gets tossed.
Even non-mechanical fixes can be satisfying. My partner's backpack strap tore off while we were on a trip to Japan and really needed it. I'm not good at sewing, but I grabbed the hotel sewing kit and did a quick and ugly repair, telling him not to wear it on one shoulder anymore since it might only last a few days.
Months later my quick ugly repair is still holding and I still see him wearing it on one shoulder. It's a nice backpack and I'm glad we didn't throw it away.
> There is almost nothing as satisfying to me as being able to fix appliances.
I get that. But I also like new shiny things. So it's with a bit of disappointment as well that I keep these appliances limping along. I want the time left in the load projected on the floor dammit!
> There is almost nothing as satisfying to me as being able to fix appliances.
On the other hand, a broken appliance is a real let-down. I have this thing that was working, and now I have (laundry/vacuuming/dishes/food) piling up and I have to fix this immediately.
My experience with oven screen repair was that even if I order all parts that could be the reason for wierd behaviour, it would still be cheaper than call technician to come and tell me for sure which part to change. I gotas lucky on first try, but case still stand that sometimes it's just cheaper replace all suspicious parts instead of calling expert to say what's wrong (and call second time for replacement)
I fixed our central AC during a 100f weekend and never felt like more of a hero for the family. YouTube has been extremely helpful with things like that. Also, shoutout to the AC repair dude who let me buy a capacitor off his truck during his lunch break.
I have fixed numerous home appliances over the past two decades almost entirely thanks to YouTube and eBay, and a willingness to apply myself. If the YouTube video has no intro and its subject is about your problem, you can be almost certain you're about to find out how to fix the problem.
YT is a great resource for fixing things like appliances, but the devices themselves have gotten (1) shittier, (2) harder to repair and (3) more expensive custom parts - that are themselves less durable. Example: the slide-out for the top rack of my dishwasher exploded, sending ball-bearings everywhere. The replacement part (mostly plastic) cost > $50 and to replace required I disconnect the water & power, uninstall the unit and access the 2 screws on the outside. Great for speeding up assembly in a factory, but ridiculous for any other purpose.
It was interesting seeing this from the other side as well. I have what I thought was an obsolete motorized awning with an obscure failure. I couldn't find anything about it so when I managed to fix it, I decided on a lark to grab my phone and record a short video. I didn't expect it would be of much use to anyone.
Now it has 80k views and dozens of comments thanking me for helping them fix their awning. (https://youtu.be/qae0XM4Dn4U)
In my home country there is a reasonably healthy culture of repairing appliances, especially white goods. We have dedicated shops that stock every conceivable part you might need, for example [1] for dishwasher spares. This particular place is open 7 days a week and they are usually very busy. It's amazing how long you can extend the life of certain appliances if you can replace some of the common failing parts on the regular.
I had a similar issue my out of warranty Sunjoe grass dethather for my lawn, where it stopped spinning. I opened it up and 10 screws later it turns out that the rubber belt that snapped was readily available on Amazon for $9. I glad I ignored the manual, it said there was no user serviceable parts inside. I won’t be buying anything from them again.
I ordered parts from here after the plastic hunter douglas cradle pieces I had shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t even know what the parts were called but the site had really good technical drawings and pictures of each piece with their names.
Anyways, I’m now considering DIYing some new blinds. My current blinds have 3 cords per window - I am hoping to switch to cordless with a tilt wand (child safety first). Has anyone gone about this before and have any tips?
This site really has it all. Somebody took a whole lot of know-how about window blinds, organized it, published it online, _and_ they found a way to make some money to sustain it, without being obnoxious or burying the information in toxic SEO sludge. It's like the sheldonbrown.com of window blinds.
It covers pillows, mattresses, etc. Labor love, makes no direct money, committed to and open about how frequent manipulation is in the industry. I followed its recommendations ~1.5 years ago when furnishing a new house and was very happy with the results fitting out 3 bedrooms.
Big Q: why is this still a niche situation? Why do only a few sites have this trait? I think it has to do with culture, habits, and laws for each language & culture. Does it vary by language or region? Are some industries more manipulable than others?
Similar: amazon somehow gets away with defaulting their search result page to "Featured" which means "people pay us to lie to you". They still do provide the option to sort by "best selling" which at least theoretically is better. I'd expect a mature citizenry to rebel and force them to have a better default, or at least let you configure your default.
I'm very interested in characterizing variation on these axes across the world and time. Is it really zero sum and always identical? Or do some habits and traits of a region, language, culture, education system make "better" systems more likely to survive? Can we even actually fairly characterize better systems? It sure feels like we can, but I've also seen people arguing that for example there is no actual difference between rent-seeking and "productive economic activity" on a theoretical level.
It doesn’t look like it covers what I had to deal with to fix my Hunter Douglas blinds. (The kind you can lift and close by hand and they magically hold their position.)
They have a spring loaded thing called a “motor” and something with two cones and a string between them, called a transmission.
I managed to restring the transmission, but the motor went zing and broke inside when I was trying to wind it up again, so I ended up having to buy a new motor (I think around $30).
It does feel like this site has everything, but I can’t find a solution here to a problem I had with mine either. I figured out a fix on my own and made this video about it, which I’m pleased has helped others fix theirs too.
I like to fix things rather than throwing them out and am glad I was able to restring a couple of blinds that didn't work in our new house. This site is where I buy.
If only there were similar sites for other home products. Currently on my list is the soap dispenser for the dishwasher which is nearly impossible to tell which part to order (and I don't want to replace a $500 appliance for what should be a $20 piece of plastic).
These blinds are truly blackout blinds, more than any other blackout blinds I've tried (and I've some fancy ones by a company called Comfort Track). Basically the persianas consist of connected slats that ride in tracks on the outside of the window, and each slat is connected to the other in such a way that when you roll the persianas all the way down then all the slats slot into each other allowing no light to get through, but when you pull the persianas up then the slats separate just enough to allow the whole thing to roll up. Because persianas ride on the outside of the window they also have some weather (temperature) and sound isolation properties.
I've never seen persianas in the U.S., or anywhere outside Argentina. Retrofitting them into American houses would definitely not be trivial as either the persianas would have to roll up on the outside of the house or ride on rails on the inside of the house, or the window header would have to be moved up in order to fit the slats passing from the inside roll to the outside rails.
They’re pretty commmin in at least France and Germany: I’ve seen manual “belt operated” ones exactly like your video, as well as fancier electric ones with metal slats and the slat storage box mounted outside.
As well as giving true darkness, they also have much better sound and thermal insulation than curtains or blinds. I would love these on my apartment!
> I've never seen persianas in the U.S., or anywhere outside Argentina. Retrofitting them into American houses would definitely not be trivial as either the persianas would have to roll up on the outside of the house or ride on rails on the inside of the house, or the window header would have to be moved up in order to fit the slats passing from the inside roll to the outside rails.
I've seen what you're looking for in higher end hotels. In America, for outside of the window it's "roller shutters" for inside the window it's "roller shades".
Most budget roller shades, inside of window, aren't true blackout as they don't come with a track, but the higher end ones do.
I purchased replacement mounts for a couple shades from this site less than a month ago. The blind was "MyBlinds by Hunter Douglas" from Home Depot, purchased in 2019, but that branding seemed long gone. Luckily I was able to dig up the installation instructions, figure out the shape, then FixMyBlinds had enough info for me to get my shades up.
Interestingly, FixMyBlinds had Bali, not Hunter Douglas as the manufacturer of the shade. I think (can't recall exactly), that Hunter Dougles, Levolor, and Bali may all be part of the same company these days.
We went with Roman Shades, and despite spending a significant amount of money on them the garbage plastic mechanisms completely disintegrated within about 2 years.
We were able to salvage the fabric from the old shades (which was still in good condition), remount it to about $20 of wood and assorted hardware per the guide, and they've been perfect for about 5 years now.
It's one of a few times we've gotten something that's so bafflingly bad that the only explanation is planned obsolescence - for a rounding error in extra manufacturing costs they could have built something that would last decades. Always feels good to fix your way out of that.
Readit News
NB: despite the richness of information, the site fails to help me because it's missing info on the specific type of blinds I was interested in ;)
EDIT: relevant Wikipedia pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_blind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_shutter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shutter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shutter_hardware
Window shutters are often used as/instead of window blinds in Europe. The linked site sadly doesn't seem to cover shutters yet, presumably because they're not popular in the USA currently. EDIT: possible explanation by another commenter - "They're hella illegal in America because of weird fire code rules": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38845794
For example, interior venetian shutters are closely related to blinds, but are not especially common in the US. Blinds with slats (venetian blinds) can perform a similar function, but can be raised to prevent any blocking of view, while interior venetian style shutters usually swing open and require additional wall-space. such shutters might win on maximum amount of light blocking (even vs wooden slat blinds) but that will vary by shutter design. Cost is certainly a major factor of them being uncommon (but far from unheard of, we even have multiple different names for them) in much of the US.
Roller shutters could be considered an exterior equivalent to roller blinds (or roller shades), although roller shutters are often designed with proper blackout capability, which most blinds and shades lack. I presume cost is one of the major reasons these are rare in the US.
I like the look, ease of tilting the louvers up and down and, most importantly, they are dead simple to clean. But they were not cheap and not easy to install. I could have had high quality fabric shades for half the cost and spent one-third the time on installation.
Edit: Maybe its particular to what I installed (Veneta) but good luck fix a single louver if one breaks. The frame which contains them is either glued or very tightly press-fit. I'm not saying it would be impossible but you'd need to be careful and probably need to build some sort of jig for re-assembly.
I am facing exactly this repair now. My method is to modify one side of the vane so that a pin can be press fit/glued into the vane from the side and covered with a glued plug. This can be done in-place when needed. It's not completely invisible but putty and a little brushwork make it almost so.
The cord that was attached to the clutch broke and got caught in the mechanism itself. When I disassembled the clutch to retrieve the cord, an internal spring came dislodged and twisted causing the clutch to never function correctly again.
Understanding exactly which part I needed replaced, I contacted Hunter Douglas, who told me to talk to a local rep. My local rep told me they couldn't repair this issue, and I would need to box up my entire window shade and sent it in. The cost was something around $200 for a repair.
I spent a lot of time scouring the internet and came across this site where I purchased the entire clutch for around $30. 5 minutes of swapping a good part for bad and I was back in action.
On a lark, I searched for my issue "Hoover Carpet Cleaner Won't Spin". I found this[0] video. Apparently, the spinning bit can get stuck if moisture get trapped somewhere inside (who would've thought with it being all about moisture?), which causes the main rotary portion to stop working. A simple hex-bit force-turn sorted it out in 20 seconds.
I don't know what I would've done had I not stumbled on this issue, but the way things are today, I suspect most people would've thought "I guess it's broken", taken it to a landfill, and simply gone out to buy a new one.
It's a real shame that there's so much focus on "every person who owns an ICE needs to immediately drop $30,000+ on an electric vehicle", when there's so much opportunity in the "let's try to fix our stuff instead of dumping it" category. #righttorepair
[0] - https://youtu.be/q9UAEwPM91M
If I'd had to call a repairman or buy a new unit every time one of these problems happened, I'd have spent thousands of dollars.
A $30k car? You'll pay a mechanic to fix that, it's too valuable an asset to just throw away (and even then, you see people selling cars with "something broken" that is not economical _for them_ to fix, but if you know how to fix it you can get a car cheap).
A $500-1k wash machine? Unlikely to be worth the $100-200 to bring out a repairman (because now you're looking at a $200 "discount" on a new one, which is probably much more "advanced" (if that's good) than the existing), so it gets tossed.
Months later my quick ugly repair is still holding and I still see him wearing it on one shoulder. It's a nice backpack and I'm glad we didn't throw it away.
I get that. But I also like new shiny things. So it's with a bit of disappointment as well that I keep these appliances limping along. I want the time left in the load projected on the floor dammit!
On the other hand, a broken appliance is a real let-down. I have this thing that was working, and now I have (laundry/vacuuming/dishes/food) piling up and I have to fix this immediately.
Now it has 80k views and dozens of comments thanking me for helping them fix their awning. (https://youtu.be/qae0XM4Dn4U)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Andersen_Air_Force_Base_B...
[1] - https://www.lvb.co.za/pages/search-results-page?collection=d...
Cost was $1.00 for two of them, so I now have a spare.
Replacing the entire PCB would have been ~$400+ CAD.
It is true, "Durable-Goods" are very difficult to come by.
Anyways, I’m now considering DIYing some new blinds. My current blinds have 3 cords per window - I am hoping to switch to cordless with a tilt wand (child safety first). Has anyone gone about this before and have any tips?
I wish I knew a site like this on every subject.
This page is a work of art, god damn it https://fixmyblinds.com/pages/troubleshooter
https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/
It covers pillows, mattresses, etc. Labor love, makes no direct money, committed to and open about how frequent manipulation is in the industry. I followed its recommendations ~1.5 years ago when furnishing a new house and was very happy with the results fitting out 3 bedrooms.
Big Q: why is this still a niche situation? Why do only a few sites have this trait? I think it has to do with culture, habits, and laws for each language & culture. Does it vary by language or region? Are some industries more manipulable than others?
Similar: amazon somehow gets away with defaulting their search result page to "Featured" which means "people pay us to lie to you". They still do provide the option to sort by "best selling" which at least theoretically is better. I'd expect a mature citizenry to rebel and force them to have a better default, or at least let you configure your default.
I'm very interested in characterizing variation on these axes across the world and time. Is it really zero sum and always identical? Or do some habits and traits of a region, language, culture, education system make "better" systems more likely to survive? Can we even actually fairly characterize better systems? It sure feels like we can, but I've also seen people arguing that for example there is no actual difference between rent-seeking and "productive economic activity" on a theoretical level.
Because - at least in the short term - you can make more money by selling your users.
For water heaters, this was helpful to me once: http://waterheatertimer.org
It is not a pretty site (author only knows of HTML tables?), but for me it fulfilled the:
> Somebody took a whole lot of know-how about [x], organized it, published it online
The site at first looks like just affiliate links, but has a lot of useful info buried like:
http://waterheatertimer.org/How-it-works.html
http://waterheatertimer.org/How-to-troubleshoot-electric-pro...
Last I checked the HN site HTML, it was tables.
They have a spring loaded thing called a “motor” and something with two cones and a string between them, called a transmission.
I managed to restring the transmission, but the motor went zing and broke inside when I was trying to wind it up again, so I ended up having to buy a new motor (I think around $30).
https://youtu.be/7fcxoEkgxZk
And they do shoe tying: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm
Knots in general: https://www.animatedknots.com/complete-knot-list
Deleted Comment
> This site really has it all.
It doesn't have German Rolladen though.
I had to fix several of them, sometimes with more success than others. Yes, I would be nice to also have a guide por the Rolladen system.
If only there were similar sites for other home products. Currently on my list is the soap dispenser for the dishwasher which is nearly impossible to tell which part to order (and I don't want to replace a $500 appliance for what should be a $20 piece of plastic).
These blinds are truly blackout blinds, more than any other blackout blinds I've tried (and I've some fancy ones by a company called Comfort Track). Basically the persianas consist of connected slats that ride in tracks on the outside of the window, and each slat is connected to the other in such a way that when you roll the persianas all the way down then all the slats slot into each other allowing no light to get through, but when you pull the persianas up then the slats separate just enough to allow the whole thing to roll up. Because persianas ride on the outside of the window they also have some weather (temperature) and sound isolation properties.
I've never seen persianas in the U.S., or anywhere outside Argentina. Retrofitting them into American houses would definitely not be trivial as either the persianas would have to roll up on the outside of the house or ride on rails on the inside of the house, or the window header would have to be moved up in order to fit the slats passing from the inside roll to the outside rails.
As well as giving true darkness, they also have much better sound and thermal insulation than curtains or blinds. I would love these on my apartment!
I've seen what you're looking for in higher end hotels. In America, for outside of the window it's "roller shutters" for inside the window it's "roller shades".
Most budget roller shades, inside of window, aren't true blackout as they don't come with a track, but the higher end ones do.
Interestingly, FixMyBlinds had Bali, not Hunter Douglas as the manufacturer of the shade. I think (can't recall exactly), that Hunter Dougles, Levolor, and Bali may all be part of the same company these days.
While researching repairing them, we found this guide to build your own: https://www.onlinefabricstore.com/makersmill/how-to-make-a-r...
We were able to salvage the fabric from the old shades (which was still in good condition), remount it to about $20 of wood and assorted hardware per the guide, and they've been perfect for about 5 years now.
It's one of a few times we've gotten something that's so bafflingly bad that the only explanation is planned obsolescence - for a rounding error in extra manufacturing costs they could have built something that would last decades. Always feels good to fix your way out of that.