Skylight Tunnel Blind Options?

GeeJay86

Hi All,

I've recently bought a house that has 3 skylights that are in a 'tunnel' as pictured below. I'm after achieving 2 things, one is to block out light when I want to, and the other is to keep the heat in.



The only thing I can find out there is a blind fixed to the window itself (yellow on diagram), which provides the function I'm after, but the problem is the window is at least 2m up, so a little awkward to operate with a pole. This only leaves remote controlled blinds, but at £180 each, makes this way too expensive.

I was wondering if there are products out there that are similar to the green or blue lines which I have drawn on the diagram, that are much more easily reachable?

ukbill69

Can you send come pictures of the window to me. Ive sent you a pm with my email.

GeeJay86

Here are a few pics of the windows in question, sorry for the delay. the cut out in the ceiling itself is 480 x 900mm approx. I'm not entirely sure about the window size itself though

sunshinetours

As this is an Money Saving site i would say buy some steps you can keep in the room and practice qwith the pole you have. Also insulate around the box in the loft



If you want to spend your money something like conservatory roof blinds that run on a track each side will be required

Anything you try and fabricate yourself is probably going to spoil the clean look of the opening

WestonDave

I guess if you were to install a normal roller blind at the blue point and along the left and right hand sides of the opening, you instal some beading big enough to stop the loose end of the blind dropping down, you might get away with a reasonably cheap solution. I'd also put a slightly bigger piece of wood on the side at the furthest point from the roller and allow the rod in the end of the blind to slot into it to stop it springing back. Probably better to use a cord operated blind than a spring loaded one.

That said as above if you do anything other than the yellow option its going to be hard to make it look good because the fittings will obscure part of the opening and even if done carefully will look a bit "fussy".

GeeJay86

Thank you both for your ideas conservatory blinds are a good idea, is the idea to install beading! I'll look into both of those a bit more

As for the insulation - I'm on to the builders about getting that sorted, as it's a brand new house so should definitely be insulated from the off.