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Yes, blinds protect from sun and even to an extent, heat, this latter being most true for thermally insulating blinds.
If you find that things within certain rooms of your house are prone to fading or discolouring due to being right in the line of fire of bright sun glare for large parts of the day, blinds can help to prevent this or greatly slow the rate at which it happens, depending on the type of blinds you get and how you use them.
There are also a couple of other applications for things that blinds can protect from sunlight too, which might not have occurred to you!
What do blinds protect from sun?
Colour fading is the most obvious/widely known thing that blinds can protect against in bright rooms; exposure to sunlight can cause white-coloured things (such as painted wooden furniture) to yellow, and coloured things to fade. This latter might be particularly annoying if they don’t fade evenly, for instance, if half of a sofa is in the sunlight and the other half is not.
You may also notice this effect if you turn sofa cushions over and find that the hidden side is much brighter coloured than the exposed side; or if you take down a picture and see that the paint or wallpaper behind it stands out from the rest of the wall.
Bright and dark colours tend to look most glaringly obvious when they fade, and you might not even realise that this is occurring until you see the reverse side or otherwise have something to use for contrast.
Blinds also protect your tech from the sun; laptops, tablets, phones etc., which are apt to overheat if left in direct bright sunlight or if exposed to high temperatures. Blinds can help to protect them from potential damage when not in use, and to take the edge off screen glare when you are using them too.
Can sun rays go through blinds?
This depends on the thickness of the blind, and its properties; sun can’t pass through blackout blinds at all, but for other types of blinds, light will filter through them to some extent.
This means that the type of blind you choose will give you options for things like filtering the sun and taking the edge off it/greatly slowing the rate of sun fading, or blocking it out entirely if you prefer.
Do blinds protect from UV rays fading fabrics and materials?
Yes, closing a blind, or using a blind to filter or diffuse light (such as can be achieved very effectively with day and night blinds) during the day will help to protect all manner of fabrics and materials from fading due to UV exposure.
To ensure that blinds do help to protect against UV fading, you would need to ensure that the blinds are left closed at the appropriate times; which may mean part of the day if the room is flooded with sun for a few hours only, or all day if the room is generally bright.
What are the best blinds to block sun completely?
If you want to block the sun from your room completely, your best choice is blackout blinds, and very thick dimout blinds.
Roller, Roman, and vertical blinds can be made in blackout fabrics as well as standard options, and both wood and faux-wood blinds with ladder tapes will also achieve an almost complete blackout effect too.
This does depend in every instance on how you hang your blinds, however; blinds can still allow sun around their sides, but this effect can be minimised if you hang the blind over (rather than inside of) the window recess, with a generous margin of additional coverage over the wall on all four sides too.
What are the best blinds to filter sunlight?
If you’re looking for blinds that can filter sunlight without blocking it entirely, your options include vertical blinds, day and night blinds, and Venetian, wood, and faux-wood blinds too.
You can also consider voiles, and even roller blinds made of voile material. These will diffuse the light that you get in the room, taking the edge off glare and slowing the rate of future fading. However, any amount of sunlight will eventually result in fading over time, although light-filtering blinds can definitely slow this down to a significant extent.
