Blind Repair or Replace? How to Tell What’s Worth Fixing

We repair roller and venetian blinds, ours and most other brands, across Auckland. That means we see the same handful of failures constantly, and we’ve got a decent sense of which ones are worth your money.

Some things to be upfront about before you read on. We repair roller and venetian blinds only. We don’t service motors — no fault diagnosis, no remote re-pairing, no motor swaps, even on blinds we made. We don’t repair aluminium slats. And a couple of jobs have to come back to our Otahuhu workshop rather than being done at your place: roller fabric replacement, and any vertical blind repair.

Roller blinds

The chain has come off, or slips

Usually repairable, and cheap. This is the single most common call we get. The clutch is the mechanism the chain runs through, and when it wears the chain jumps or won’t hold the blind up. Replacing a clutch is quick and costs a fraction of a new blind. The fabric and tube are usually fine.

The blind won’t stay up, or crawls down

Usually repairable. Same family of problem — clutch or spring. Worth a look before you write it off.

The blind rolls up crooked

Often repairable. Sometimes it’s the brackets having shifted or the blind not sitting square, which is a re-fit. Sometimes the fabric has been cut fractionally out of square, which is not fixable and means a new blind. We can usually tell which within a minute of looking at it.

The fabric is stained, faded or torn

Often replaceable, but it’s a workshop job. The mechanism outlives the fabric fairly often, especially on a sunny window, and putting new fabric on the existing hardware costs less than starting over. This one can’t be done at your place though — the blind has to come back to our Otahuhu factory, so it’s a drop-off or pick-up rather than a visit.

The bottom rail is bent

Repairable. Rails are replaceable.

Venetian blinds

A slat is cracked or snapped

Repairable. Individual slats can be replaced. It’s worth doing on a timber venetian, which is a valuable blind.

Aluminium slats are bent

Not something we repair. We replace cracked timber slats, but we don’t straighten or replace aluminium slats — if the slats on an aluminium venetian are bent, it’s a new blind. We’d rather tell you that up front than take a call-out fee to come and say it in person.

The cords are frayed, or the blind won’t lift evenly

Repairable. Restringing is bread-and-butter work for us. A blind that lifts wonky is usually a cord routing problem, not a dead blind.

The slats won’t tilt

Usually repairable. The tilt mechanism is a replaceable part.

When we’d tell you to replace

We’d rather do a repair than sell a blind, but there are cases where repairing is throwing money away:

• The blind is the wrong size for the window. No repair fixes a blind that was never cut right.
• Damage across most of the blind. Half the slats gone, fabric shredded — the parts bill approaches a new blind.
• You were going to change it anyway. If the fabric is dated and you don’t like it, spending on a repair to keep something you want to replace is a false economy.
• Obsolete parts on a very old blind. Occasionally components can’t be matched. We’ll tell you rather than bodge it.

A note on very cheap blinds

Off-the-shelf blinds from a big-box store are often built so the mechanism can’t be separated from the rest. There’s frequently nothing to repair. That’s not snobbery about where you bought them — it’s just how they’re made, and it’s worth knowing before you pay anyone a call-out.

How our repairs work

We come to you across Auckland where the job allows, which covers most roller and venetian repairs — chains, cords, clutches, brackets, slats and re-fits. Roller fabric replacement and all vertical blind repairs go back to the Otahuhu workshop, along with anything else that can’t be done properly on a ladder. You get told which before anything happens.

We work on most brands, not only blinds we made. Full detail is on the blind repairs page.

Making them last

Most of the failures above are wear, and wear is slowed by simple things: don’t yank a chain that’s jammed, lower a venetian fully before tilting the slats closed, and keep the slats and fabric clean so grit isn’t working through the mechanism. Our care and cleaning guide covers each type.

And if it turns out replacement is the answer, everything we make is built to measure in Auckland, with a five-year warranty on our roller and venetian blinds and most orders made in less than two weeks.