There is a vertical blind in a lot of British houses with two slats missing, one hanging at an angle, and a general air of having given up. It has been like that for a year because the assumed fix is a new blind, and that is a job.
It almost certainly is not a new blind. It is three slats, and about four minutes.
Understand what the blind is made of
A vertical blind is three things pretending to be one product.
Along the top there is a headrail, containing a row of carriers that rotate and slide. Hanging from those carriers are the slats, sometimes called louvres or vanes. And a chain or wand makes it all move.
The headrail is the expensive bit and the durable bit. It is aluminium and engineered plastic and it does not really wear out. Everything that goes wrong visibly happens to the slats, which are consumable by design.
Diagnose before you buy anything
Take one slat off, unclipping or unhooking it from the carrier, and look at both parts.
If the slat is torn at the top hole, split, faded or dirty in a way that will not clean, the slat is the problem. If the carrier does not rotate when you pull the chain, or will not slide along the rail, the mechanism is the problem.
That distinction decides everything. Bad slats and a good headrail means you are buying slats. A bad headrail means you are buying a blind, and no amount of new fabric will make a broken carrier traverse.
Buying the right replacements
Two measurements and one count: the width of a single slat, the drop from the bottom of the carrier to where the slat should finish, and how many you need. Replacement louvres for an existing headrail are made to the drop you specify, which is the part that makes this work as a repair rather than a compromise.
Take the drop from a slat that is still the right length rather than from the window, and if none of them is right, measure the window and subtract the clearance you want above the floor or sill. A standard length that is 40mm too long has to be hemmed, and one that is short looks wrong immediately.
Order a couple of spares while you are at it. The next tear will happen.
Fitting them
Hook each new slat onto its carrier, making sure they all face the same way, and clip the bottom chain on if there is one.
Two things people get wrong. Slats have a right way round, and a set fitted with some reversed will show as a colour difference the moment you close the blind. And if the old slats were faded, new ones will not match the survivors, so on a sun-facing window it is generally better to replace the whole set than to patch three in the middle.
That second point is the honest caveat here. Patching works on a north-facing window and looks obvious on a south-facing one.
When to stop repairing
If the headrail is failing, if the slat width is no longer available, or if the blind is simply the wrong product for the room, replacement is the right answer.
That last one is worth thinking about. A vertical blind is excellent on a wide window or a patio door and mediocre on a small one, so if you are replacing anyway, replace with the right format rather than the same format. 1 Click Blinds’ range lists the alternatives by window type, which makes that easier than working from a catalogue of fabrics.
And for a bedroom, if you are already spending money at that window, consider whether the actual complaint is light rather than tidiness. A day and night blind or a proper blackout blind solves a different problem, and it may be the one you have.
