TIL miniblinds with pull cords to raise and lower them are now illegal to sell in the United States
TIL miniblinds with pull cords to raise and lower them are now illegal to sell in the United States
Replacing a broken set of blinds in my house and apparently no one sells the old standard kind where you pull the cord to raise them, I guess because kids and/or pets could tangle in the cord? Bit of an education in miniblinds today.
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I've never understood why they had more than 1 string for a set of blinds, it's not like anybody wants to raise only one corner of it?
My experience has been that stringless blinds are the Landlord Special of window covering, they suck ass and barely raise up if you don't get the individual "blades" perfectly horizontal.
One string pulling up the left side, one string pulling up the right side. They are separated in the "down" position, so they have to be separated in the "up" as well.
If you use only one string in the middle, they will never stay level.
Little trick I figured out as a kid in case you ever have the string blinds again (also, never seen stringless):
Cut a string to the same length as the two coming out of the blinds, snip the little plastic cap off the two attached to the blinds, and braid the three strings together, tie at the end. Never pull unevenly again.
You can't braid them together, they won't go through the take-up mechanism when you drop them closed. I tried wrapping one with the same idea in mind and had to sit and unwrap them because I couldn't close them anymore.
You could just braid the bottom and set the braid with a knot, but that's basically what the knot at the end and the cap do.
Even if you braid it while the blinds are already closed it won't work?
I haven't tried this yet but want to try when I get home. I worry about my cats getting tangled and one cord would be better than whatever the hell is going on with it now lol.
I've personally done it, but now I wonder if those blinds were somehow loose or different. Don't wanna suggest you do it just to have to undo it if it doesn't work :/
I can definitely believe it works for some styles. You basically have to open the blinds and then slowly let it down and see where the strings go. If they're feeding into separate "tracks" as you lower it, it won't work.
The string that is fed down and hangs all the blinds together is basically the same string as the pull-string. The one I tried this on, each string split into separate tracks inside the top part, so it didn't work.
Maybe the ones I've had are looser? I've personally done it to 3 different blinds, but they were all in the same rental house, so maybe they're different somehow
You can also just leave the cap intact, and and just tie the end of the cord in a knot to keep the strings together. Just loop it around itself and poke the end through the loop and tighten it to make the knot sit near the end of the cord.
The two strings is so that you can keep them level when one side inevitably wears slightly longer than the other.
more than 1 string for a set of blinds
Small differences in rolling behaviour for each string as they're collected on the roll can cause tuning problems and so need tiny adjustment periodically.
Just tie a knot. Avoid the overhand - do a climber's figure-8 instead - if you want to untie it later for tuning ever.