Mermet metallised fabrics, ‘M-Screen Ultimetal (MSU)’, ‘Screen Nature Ultimetal (SNU)’ and ‘Satine Low-E’ have been developed by Mermet taking three of their well-established fabrics and adding to them the latest high-performance metallised coatings.

Mermet have been weaving glass fibre cored screen shading fabrics for roller window blinds over 50 years. The dimensional stability and inertia (does not stretch, does not burn, does not absorb) of the glass fibre already produces some of the better shading fabrics available. Large panels can be made that do not stretch, require few joints, and lie flat with the additional benefits brought with fine yarns. Those of best external through vision and diffuse distribution of incoming natural light.

Externally located shading provides the best levels of heat and light control and fabric colour is not key. But where external installations are not practical, internal shading must be used. This meant, before metallisation became available, fabric colour was going to determine performance. You could have good heat control OR good light control. Light, reflecting, colours give better heat control while darker, absorbent, colours the better glare control. One or the other, or the dreaded compromise – shades of grey, until metallisation.

Shiny, reflective metallised coatings were initially trialled to improve heat control but found to not be much more reflective than a conventional fabric in white. But on open weave materials light transmission values were found to be dramatically reduced irrespective of base fabric colour. Suddenly a shading fabric for an internal roller blind could be chosen that had great levels of Solar Reflectance(Rs), good glare control with low Visible Light Transmittance (Tv) and the bonus of giving the option to choose an internal face colour aesthetically. Now an open weave screen fabric window blind can be chosen with an internal face colour in white, black, cream or grey without largely effecting its performance. Enough reason to be choosing a Mermet metallised fabric already.

But the metallisation of the fabrics face can provide another, initially unsought, benefit, low emissivity.

Emissivity is a material’s surfaces ability to radiate heat (thermal energy). The fabrics used generally for window shading have high emissivity, they present little or no barrier to the passage of thermal energy letting up to 90% (0.90) pass. This means that a standard roller blind fabric when covering the window does not have any real beneficial effect on the insulation of the window.

Low emissivity will however produce significant improvements to the insulating properties of the roller blind, keeping expensively generated heat in the room at night and over winter. For how many years having the manufacturers of double glazing been adding and extolling the virtues of low-e coatings to their glass?

As low emissivity is such an additional benefit why would you limit it to just one fabric? Mermet do not, they have three.

Mermet’s ‘Satine Low-E’ fabric has metallised, low-e (15%) coatings to both faces of the well-established robust Satine 5500 fabric.

SNU, the Ultimetal version of Screen Nature has a low-e (10%) coating to the pvc free, fossil fuel free, 90 + % glass fibre screen fabric.

MSU, the Ultimetal coated version of the popular M-Screen internal fabric with emissivity down to 5% (0.05) and patented coating.

How do you choose between the three fabrics for your application? De Leeuw ltd, the parent company of Mermet UK brought the then latest in metallised shading material shading technology into the UK in early 1980s with the Reflex-Rol cassetted, metallised roller window blinds. A technology still giving market leading performance today in fine natural light filtration (glare control) and solar reflectance (heat control). With this near 40 years’ understanding of the science and experience in assisting with specification of performance shading De Leeuw ltd trained staff are well placed to explain, and design and quantify shading solutions with these new generation Mermet fabrics.

Change the way you consider and select window shading fabrics in the future. Rip up those old preconceptions, take control of the window. Improve the view, remove the glare, improve the insulation, reduce unwanted solar heat-gain, and improve occupant comfort. Specify Mermet metallised fabrics.