Moving into a new property?
If you are moving into a new property, co-ordinating window blinds along with the other things you want to achieve before or close to moving in day, can be daunting. We install blinds in new properties multiple times every week and co-ordinate with our customers as necessary to achieve the installation of blinds either before or as close to moving in day as possible.
There are three broad stages to this.
- Measuring
- Quoting
- Installation
We can only measure a completed property
We cannot measure an incomplete property!
Manufacturing sizes for window blinds are millimetre critical. Therefore, we cannot measure an incomplete property. But what exactly is a complete property?
For us to measure windows in your property ALL of the following must have been completed.
All plaster work must be completed
All sill boards must be installed
All tiling must be complete either in windows that will be fully tiled OR window that will have part-tiles towards the bottom (e.g. bathrooms, kitchens, utility rooms)
All splashbacks installed if they interfere with a window opening and therefore could impact the size of any blind installed there
If the TYPE of blind you are interested in needs to be installed in a floor length window e.g. a door, then the flooring must be down as well as skirting board in place!
Depending on your builder, some of these things may not be complete until close to your moving in date. Generally, this is not an issue so long as you plan ahead.
Measuring, Quoting, Installation
The Measuring process
You can either choose to be at the property whilst it is measured or we can coordinate with the sales office for access and measure in your absence. For us to measure without you present, we must have a sense of the TYPE of blinds you are looking for. This way, our surveyors, if they find some windows have restrictions will know what those are and how they apply to your property.
Blinds that cover door areas should definitely be discussed prior to our visit.
In most cases, we tend to measure properties without customers present and use our showroom to go through the process of discussing what type of blinds and colours you require.
Meeting you on site at a specific time needs plenty of notice. All of our surveyors generally have a full days and other than the first call of the day, it is difficult for us to be somewhere at a specific time. Every call we attend we have to estimate how long that call will take. Sometimes customers take much longer to choose blinds than we have allowed for and so we need to book you with a surveyor who does not have a full morning or afternoon with appointments, otherwise there may be a risk they are late having been held up at a previous call.
When should this be organised?
Noting the importance of the property being in a complete and finished state as outlined above, you should contact us as soon as you are given an idea when the property will be ready for measuring. We are a busy company and operate a diary system for all of our surveyors / fitters. Depending on the time of year, we can book calls up to two weeks ahead.
Give us as much notice as possible. For example, if today is the 1st and you have an indication the property will be ready to measure from the 15th, ring us on the 1st! We will book an appointment for you so we have reserved the necessary time with one of our surveyors.
Quotation
For us to quote you, we need to know your choice of blinds. For fabric blinds, we must have a sense of what fabrics you are likely to go ahead with as there are often significant price variances in the huge range of materials we carry for blinds such as Verticals and Rollers.
Installation
With the exception of Roman blinds, we manufacture every other type of blind we offer in our two factories, located in Colchester. This gives us significant flexibility to have blinds installed before or close to your moving in date.
For us, the most important thing is having a space reserved for you with a fitter! With 40+ years experience of manufacturing, we know how to plan our production to get things made. But, we don’t have infinite numbers of fitters and so it is important we pencil you in a date for installation.
It is not uncommon for us to reserve you a fitting slot ahead of time, even if you have not finalised your choice of blinds OR even placed an order with us! If we have reserved you a fitting slot ahead of time you are not obligated to proceed with an order and even if you cancel this within a week or so, we will fill that gap in our diary, quickly.
For most customers, there is plenty of time in between these phases to arrange everything. However, if your deadlines are extremely tight, please contact us to discuss the issues you are facing.
As an example, we have helped many customers who were not able to even get us in to measure until 10 days before their moving in date. In these instances, we dealt with choices of blinds and colours in our showroom and reserved out the fitting space before we had even measured! So long as we have planned ahead, we can reserve out manufacturing space as required to make sure we can install blinds to a timescale that works for you.