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Window film
Updated
Film lowers the g-value all year, including on the dull days when you wanted the sun, and it can stress some glass. It does not black out, secure, or add a night cover.
The difference that matters
It is a maybe on a fixed pane you cannot shade from outside. It is a poor cousin to a shutter on a door you could have covered properly.
A roller, a screen, a venetian and a plantation panel are four answers.
The same pane, costed
The worked opening for Window film is 0.9 m wide by 2.35 m high, 2.12 square metres of glass. This figure puts 495 watts per square metre on the pane and uses a g-value of 0.76, about 798 watts into the room if the curtain is up. An opaque external shutter, taken as stopping 90 percent of that gain while it is fully down, leaves about 80 watts and keeps about 718 watts out. That is a noon figure for comparison. An internal blind does not get the same reduction. For Window film, use the noon figure to compare two openings on the same house, then let a measured survey replace the figure.
Fitted illustration for Window film in Manchester: £2,134 at September 2026 prices, for this 0.9 by 2.35 m opening with a solar motor. The figure allows a front-mounted aluminium curtain and ordinary fixing. It does not include scaffold, a rebuilt soffit, planning drawings, or a new window. A second opening on the same visit usually costs less than the first, because the van is already there. Compare two quotes only when the slat, the box and the drive match.
The season people forget
Winter figure for Window film: glass at 2.6 W/m2K, 2.12 square metres, a 12 degree inside-outside gap and eight night hours. The bare pane is about 0.53 kWh a night on that crude sum. A closed shutter cutting about 30 percent of the flow leaves 0.37 kWh and saves about 0.16 kWh a night, only while it is down. Open it when you want winter sun.
Pick one job
Stop Window film if the door is an escape route and the motor has no way to open when it is dead. A photograph is not a manufacturing size.
If Window film is really a privacy job on a bay, price internal louvres and stop forcing a cassette to do joinery.
How to use the figure
The 0.9 by 2.35 metre opening inside Window film is there so a quote has something to disagree with. If the tape gives a different size, the tape wins.
The example drive is a solar motor, and the illustration is £2,134. A belt, a wired motor and a solar motor can share a curtain and still be different jobs. Compare those lines, not a single bold total.
What the survey still has to write down
For Window film, ask where the box lands, what colour reference will be ordered, and how the curtain opens when the motor is dead. Those three answers move the job more than a rounded price.
Leave the lantern, the side light and the next elevation off the order unless they are drawn. Window film covers one kind of opening. The house may have three.
When I would not order yet
Window film should wait if the opening is an escape door with no way to raise a dead motor, or if the front is the elevation a conservation area was drawn to protect.
A photograph is not a manufacturing size. Two quotes for Window film only compare when the slat, the box and the drive are the same kind of thing.
Questions worth asking the fitter
Is the price on this page a quote?
No. £2,134 illustrates Window film for a 0.9 by 2.35 metre opening with a solar motor, at September 2026 rates. Your survey replaces it.
Does the shutter cover every pane?
It covers the opening it is built for. Here that example is 2.12 square metres. A roof lantern, a side light or the next elevation is another line.
What if planning is unclear?
Do not pay the factory for Window film until a listed building, a conservation front, a flat or a shopfront has a written answer. Ordinary rear walls on houses are sometimes simpler.
What should two quotes share?
The same openings, the same slat type, and the same drive. Window film uses a solar motor in the example so you can see how much the motor choice moves £2,134.