Outdoor and patio roller shades

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Solar radiation passes through glass easily. Once inside, it is absorbed by floors, furniture and fabric, which re-radiate it as longer-wavelength heat — and that heat does not pass back out through glass nearly as readily. This is the greenhouse effect operating in your living room, and it is why an interior blind can be hot to the touch while the room keeps warming up behind it.

An exterior shade intercepts the radiation before the trap closes. The shade itself gets hot, but it is outside, where convection carries the heat away.

• Somewhere to mount. Exterior shades need a soffit, a beam, a pergola rail or a wall above the opening. This is the constraint that rules them out most often — a bare wall above a patio door with no overhang gives you nothing to fix to.
• Wind. Every exterior shade has a wind limit, and the honest ones state it. A shade left down in a gust can tear, bend its rail, or pull its fixings out. Plan on rolling it up when the weather turns, or budget for a wind-rated system with side guides.
• Fabric type. Knitted outdoor fabrics breathe, which keeps them stable in wind and lets air move through. Solid vinyl blocks more but behaves like a sail. For most patios, knitted is the better trade.
• Operation. A wand or crank is simple and fails rarely. Motorised systems are far more pleasant to live with and add a power supply, a remote, and something else to go wrong.
• UV rating. Manufacturers publish a UV block percentage for outdoor fabrics — it is a genuine comparative figure. Higher blocks more heat and view; lower keeps the outlook.

Two things account for most disappointment with outdoor shades. The first is fixing into the wrong thing — a shade at full extension in a breeze applies real leverage to its brackets, and fixings into soffit board, thin fascia or unreinforced stucco pull out. Fix into structure.

The second is leaving it down. Outdoor shade fabric lives a hard life in UV and weather, and the difference in lifespan between one that is rolled up when not in use and one that is left down permanently is substantial. Treat it like an awning rather than a blind.

An exterior shade handles heat and much of the glare, but it does nothing for privacy after dark and nothing for a reflection on a screen inside. Most patio-facing rooms end up with both: a shade outside for the heat, and something inside for the evening. The interior options are in best roller shades, and the heat side is covered more fully in best curtains to keep heat out.