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Slats that lock or walk sideways
Updated
A curtain that shifts sideways will jam. It can be a guide clearance, a missing end clip or a previous forced movement.
Separate a jam from a setting
Do not oil the slats with a random spray. The maker's notes say what is allowed near the locks.
Write down the time, whether the curtain is level, and any click. Repeated button presses overheat a motor and make a simple limit fault look like a death.
The opening this fault sits on
Fitted illustration for Slats that lock or walk sideways in Swansea: £4,231 at September 2026 prices, for this 4.2 by 1.2 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.
- Leave the curtain where it stopped.
- Check for ice, a plant, or a bifold handle in the guide.
- Note the motor brand if it is written inside the box cover you were shown.
- For Slats that lock or walk sideways, do not order a whole new elevation because one axle misbehaved.
Do not invent a temperature from a stuck motor
Winter figure for Slats that lock or walk sideways: glass at 2.6 W/m2K, 5.04 square metres, a 12 degree inside-outside gap and eight night hours. The bare pane is about 1.26 kWh a night on that crude sum. A closed shutter cutting about 30 percent of the flow leaves 0.88 kWh and saves about 0.38 kWh a night, only while it is down. Open it when you want winter sun.
Hands off, then a list
Stop Slats that lock or walk sideways if the frame cannot take a guide and the wall beside it is crumbling. A photograph is not a manufacturing size.
How to use the figure
The 4.2 by 1.2 metre opening inside Slats that lock or walk sideways 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 £4,231. 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 Slats that lock or walk sideways, 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. Slats that lock or walk sideways covers one kind of opening. The house may have three.
When I would not order yet
Slats that lock or walk sideways 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 Slats that lock or walk sideways 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. £4,231 illustrates Slats that lock or walk sideways for a 4.2 by 1.2 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 5.04 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 Slats that lock or walk sideways 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. Slats that lock or walk sideways uses a solar motor in the example so you can see how much the motor choice moves £4,231.