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Not if they’re good quality, well made, and not subjected to unduly harsh treatment. Faux wood blinds are arguably the hardest type of blind to break because they’re made of relatively thick PVC, which is itself very sturdy and certainly far more hardwearing than any blind made out of fabric.
That said, some faux wood blinds are more hardwearing than others, so the question of quality has to be taken into account too. Also, some parts of the blind are more likely to break than others; and I’ll tell you exactly which parts (and why) those are within this article.
So, do faux wood blinds break easily? Read on to find out.
Do faux wood blinds break easily, and what dictates this?
Do faux wood blinds break easily, and what dictates this? It partially depends on the quality of the blind (and your definition of “easily” for that matter too)!
As a rule, faux wood blinds are robust and hardwearing, certainly when you pick good ones that are made of quality materials right down to all of the little and often invisible mechanisms and fixings. This will almost invariably mean picking made-to-measure faux wood blinds.
Readymade faux wood blinds are mass-produced, and will never compete with a made-to-measure on quality and so, longevity. Also, even the better-quality options among readymade faux wood blinds need to be manufactured with the intention that their buyers may be cutting them to size at home with basic tools.
This means that by design, they won’t be as hardwearing or in some cases, have the same sort of structural integrity as a made-to-measure faux wood blind. For instance, the headrail of readymade faux wood blinds in particular may begin to bow over time, as it lacks the reinforcement of made-to-measure, in order to allow you to be able to cut the readymade option to size at home with something less hardcore than a chainsaw.
Faux wood PVC itself is robust and durable, and quality blinds have sturdy slats that are highly unlikely to break in normal use and are also reasonably likely to come off the winner in a fight with an aluminium baseball bat wielded by a rampaging child. (We do not actually guarantee this though, to be clear.)
A reasonably good quality faux wood blind should not fall apart or break under normal usage, and you should not have to be deliberately delicate with them either.
What part of a faux wood blind is most likely to break?
The quality question is vitally important when considering how hard or otherwise damaging a faux wood blind might be – and this applies partially in terms of the slats, but more so, in terms of the control cord or other means of operation, and the internal mechanism and workings that enable the blind to be raised, lowered, and tilted to suit.
Damaging the slats of a faux wood blind would be pretty difficult unless you made a deliberate and concerted effort to do so, or if the blind itself was very cheap and poorly made to begin with. However, the quality of a faux wood blind will tend to out itself more in terms of how soon it shows visible signs of wear, and in the controls and operating mechanism. These areas are where you’re likely to find that a poor quality or cheap faux wood blind falls down and may be apt to break or fail to work properly faster than you might reasonably expect.
How hard is it to break or damage the slats of a faux wood blind?
Snapping one (or more) of the slats of a faux wood blind actually requires quite a lot of pressure, to the point that if you tried to do this deliberately (I’ll get back to you on why anyone would want to do that just as soon as I think of a plausible reason) you’d probably come off the loser.
Faux wood blinds are also waterproof – so if you fail to beat one to death, drowning won’t help either. This is why they’re a popular choice of kitchen and bathroom blinds, as being splashed won’t cause them to crack or warp over time.
They can also handle cleaning products without fear that they’ll start to absorb them or that this will affect their finish, and finally, they’re fire-retardant too. See? Faux wood blinds are not easy to break, or destroy by other means either.
Do faux wood blinds break easily in terms of their operating mechanism?
If your faux wood blind is a good quality one, you should not hear a peep out of the operating mechanism in its headrail for a great many years (and can usually quiet it down again with a quick dust and a little lubricant spray if you eventually do).
But if your blind is a little less er, classy and/or you have a very good quality blind that is nonetheless reaching OAP territory, you may well find that it is the mechanism failing to function or a small but integral part of it simply wearing out that is most likely to draw your faux wood blind’s life to its inevitable conclusion.
That said, when it comes to made-to-measure faux wood blinds, most people get to the point that they want to redecorate and so, replace their blinds for aesthetic reasons long before they get to the point that the blind itself stops working.
How sturdy are faux wood blind cords and controls?
This can vary depending on the type of controls you have, how often you adjust the blind, and how rough you are with them! Again, the controls are rather more likely to go haywire (or just refuse to go anywhere at all) than the slats, but this is not something you should expect to have happen early on in your blind’s life, or regularly throughout it.
One of the main bugbears for the owners of faux wood blinds with cords is less that the cord falls apart and more that it gets grubby over time simply from being handled. However, these can be cleaned and/or replaced as needed to resolve the problem.
Most issues with faux wood blind controls can be fixed, unless something has actually broken off or worn away internally; and again, it will be years and years before this becomes even a potential issue for any good quality faux wood blind.
Prove me wrong…
Finally, if you’ve broken a faux wood blind in an interesting way I’d be interested to hear how!
Also if you do have a broken faux wood blind due to even the most pedestrian of causes, how it broke, how long you’d had it, and whether it was made-to-measure (not necessarily by us) or readymade is also of great interest to me, so tell me more…
