Providing Custom Roller Shade Solutions for School Districts
In 2009 Drapery Industries provided several hundred BlueShade® solarweave roller shades to Union Endicott High School. The roller shades worked very well, providing light and glare control and excellent view-through.
Fast forward to 2017 as the school district embarked on a large capital improvement project including the replacement of many of the windows in the high school. While the process was underway it was determined that the new window sizes would require new roller shades. (Consideration was given to purchasing all new shades which was very costly and not part of the project budget.)
At this point the architectural firm on the project, BCK-IBI Group, reached out to us. Knowing we provided the original custom roller shades for the school, they asked if these shades could be remade to fit the new windows. We knew that the shades were well made but we would need do several things before providing a final answer:
- Assess the condition of the shades.
- Measure the shades.
- Measure the size of the new windows and compare these to the shade sizes.
When all of this was completed we determined that out of 100 new roller shades needed, sixty could be remade. We did a quick analysis and established that the cost for the remade shades would only be 1/3 the price of a new shade. We were quickly given the contract and asked to proceed.
Substantial Savings with Remade Custom Roller Shades
Other than a short delay in our delivery of the shades (we’d just finished a record summer season in both production and installation) the project came-off without a hitch. The shades were installed quickly, and our customer realized a savings of almost $6000! And beside the cost savings, there were environmental benefits. Remaking these shades addressed the “Reuse” part of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” and saved over 500 pounds of old shades from entering the local landfill.
We build hundreds of shades per week and only a fraction are “remakes”. It usually takes more time to remake an old shade than to make a new one. But we have the expertise and equipment to do both. If you have shades made by us and would like to repurpose them, please let us know. We’ll help you decide if this approach is helpful for your project too.
PS. We were just asked by the architectural firm BCK-IBI Group for a proposal to remake more roller shades!
Union Endicott High School
Remaking an old roller shade
One of several pallets of old shades to be remade
Final testing of finished roller shades