Welcome to The Maintenance Ear. A place to gather news and insight related to maintenance. This page is dedicated to the discussion of all things vertical blinds. Through the best pictures, videos, blogs, diagrams, questions, comments, suggestions, and favorites I can find on the subject. May it serve you well as it develops.
Vertical Blinds come in countless shapes, sizes, styles, and designs, yet they have many things in common. The most basic common parts of wand controlled vertical blinds are the head rail, mounting brackets, master gear, wand, blind slats (also called vanes), stem gear, gear comb, control rod, end stops (idle ends), retainer clip, valance clips and valances.
From the book Kung Fu Maintenance by James H. Klovach Chapter 17
Corded and chained blinds also have common parts that can be repaired though they are slowly but steadily being phased out due to the choke hazards and the slightly lengthier repair process. Often it takes less time to replace a set of these blinds than to repair them. I will eventually try to go through some different repair techniques for corded vertical blinds if enough people want to know how to repair them mostly for the fun of fixing them. I must tell you however it is on my very back burner due to their inevitable extinction. At the least however you can make corded blinds less dangerous through shortening the cord, wall mounting the cord, shortening the chain and splitting the chain. This is more on my front burner. I will either try to locate a video that shows this technique or I will try to make one ( If you request this I will try to make it faster).
If your blinds are hard to work than you will want to use a silicone spray lubricant along the track and sprockets. Silicone spray is preferred over WD-40 for this application as wd-40 stays wet and will collect dirt and hair where as silicone spray dries but still maintains its slick lubricant qualities.
There are a number of questions that this page answers through the videos and writing. I hope this page has answered your questions. If it has not or you want more detail or clarity on a particular question or point please ask them or re post the question in the comment section below and I will try to answer them on this page. Please come back as I update it. I will continue to add to the list of questions that this blog answers or has answered below and update it as more are added.
If there is a question posted you feel you can add detail to please do so in the comment box below.
What kind of lubricant should I use for vertical blinds?
How can I make my blinds work better?
How come my blinds wont turn?
How can I make corded blinds safer?
What are the parts of vertical blinds called?
How do I adjust a blind that is out of step?
How do I replace a stripped vertical master blind gear?
How do I replace a broken comb gear or blind stem?
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