Do roof windows come with blinds?

What arrives on the delivery, and what does not

Open a delivery and you get the outer frame with its fixing brackets, the sash with the glazing unit already installed and the gaskets fitted, the handle or control bar, an insulation collar, and the flashing kit in a separate flat carton. There is a ventilation flap in the head of the sash with a filter behind it. There is no blind, no fly screen and no external awning.

Accessory lists on manufacturer websites sit next to the units and it is easy to assume they are included. They are not. A quotation that reads as a single figure for the window has almost certainly not priced a blind, and if darkness matters to you in that room, ask.

Why the manufacturer’s own blind fits and a generic one usually does not

Roof window blinds are not sized to the room, they are sized to the unit’s size code. The blind for an MK04 is made for an MK04 and it will fit any MK04 from that manufacturer regardless of which house it is in. The side channels engage in a groove already formed in the sash profile and the head box locates on pre-drilled points.

A generic blind cut to a measured aperture has to be screwed into the sash, which means drilling through a factory finish and, on some frames, through the drainage route. It also tends to hang rather than run in channels, which on a sloping window means it stands off the glass and lets light down both edges. The point of a channelled blind on a roof window is that gravity is pulling it away from the glass and something has to hold it flat.

The bracket positions are decided at the factory

This is the part worth understanding before you decide to leave blinds until later. The pre-formed channel and the bracket holes are part of the sash moulding. They will still be there in five years, so a later blind will still fit, and nothing is lost structurally by waiting.

What you lose by waiting is on the electrical side. If you want a mains powered blind, the cable has to reach the head of the window, and the easy moment to run it is while the reveal is open and the plasterboard is off. Decide that before the internal finishing, not after.

What the different blind types actually do

They are not variations on a theme. Each solves a different problem and they are frequently combined.

• Pleated or translucent blinds diffuse light and give privacy. They do not darken a room and they do very little about heat.
• Blackout blinds run in side channels with a light seal and are the only type that genuinely darkens a loft bedroom.
• Venetian blinds let you direct light without losing it, which suits a home office or a bathroom.
• Roller blinds are the simple middle option, cheap and reasonably effective at glare.
• External awning blinds sit on the outside of the glass in a mesh and stop solar gain before it gets through the pane. They are the only type that meaningfully controls heat.

Blackout is a construction, not a colour

A dark fabric is not a blackout blind. Blackout is achieved by a coated opaque fabric running in aluminium side channels with a seal at the head, so light cannot get down the edges. Fit a dark roller blind without channels to a roof window and you will still have two bright vertical lines on the ceiling at five in the morning in June.

That distinction matters more on a roof window than on a wall window, because the glass is facing the sky. A north facing roof pane is bright at dawn in a way a north facing wall window never is. If the room is a bedroom, specify the channelled type. The wider question of whether a room needs one at all is covered on do rooflights need blinds.

Manual, solar and mains, and what each costs you

Manual blinds are operated by a handle on the bottom rail, or by a pole if the window is high. They are the cheapest and the least likely to need anything doing to them.

Solar powered blinds carry a small photovoltaic cell and a battery in the head box, and they are controlled by a remote. They need no cable at all, which makes them the sensible retrofit on a finished room, though the cell needs enough light landing on it, so a heavily shaded north slope under a tree is not the best case.

Mains powered blinds are wired back to a supply and controlled from a switch or a remote. They are the tidiest long term option and the most disruptive to add later, because the cable has to get to the head of the window through a finished reveal.

Ordering the blind later, and what changes

Nothing structural changes. The channels and brackets are still there and a manufacturer blind for that size code will still clip on. What changes is the price of getting it to you, because it arrives as a single item rather than on the same delivery, and the ease of any wiring.

One thing to keep is the size code. Write it down, or photograph the data label on the sash, which is usually visible when the window is rotated. Without it you are matching a blind to a window by measuring, and the sizes are close enough together that measuring gets it wrong.

What we fit and what we leave to you

We fit blinds supplied with the window as part of the installation, because the unit is already accessible and the reveal is already open. We will run a cable for a mains blind while the reveal is open if you have decided on one.

We do not supply generic or made to measure blinds from third party suppliers, and we do not drill factory finished sashes to take them. Clip-on manufacturer blinds are a straightforward job you can do yourself later in about ten minutes per window, and we would rather tell you that than charge you for it.

We install and replace roof windows and rooflights across Oxford and up to twenty five miles by road, with fifteen years in the trade and a ten-year workmanship guarantee. We fit VELUX, Fakro, Keylite and Roto units, and we will tell you at survey which rooms in your house will want a blackout blind and which will not.