Hi there, it’s Roger here from RMA and just my top five things to think about when you’re looking at dividing curtains.
So there’s a number of different dividing curtain styles, so that depends on what you’re after. There’s the most basic ones you can get, which will walk draw. They just follow a track or a cable and draw across the side.
Then you start to get into the roof retractable ones, which are more common. You might have a fold up one, which retracts with a steel bar across the bottom, and some cables coming down. And it folds up as it goes up. Or, the more modern ones which roll up—they’re a really good way of doing things, but different curtains serve different niches.
It’s really important when you’re looking at the curtains to figure out what type of materials you want to have, because it’s going to vary from curtain to curtain. So back in the old days, we would be using things like netting on the walk draw curtains, and even some of the upwards tractable ones. But the problem is you can get your fingers caught, and the netting tends to get holes in it fairly quickly. So that’s something that we don’t encourage so much these days. We suggest more that you go for something like this vinyl mesh, which is a much better way of going. This still allows the air and the light to go through, but it’s much more durable and it’s not likely to hold or develop holes in time.
And of course, you want to find a nice ripstop vinyl, something that will take the rigors of day to day use and won’t tear. You want to make sure you have a range of different colors available as well.
If you’re looking for the older style fold up curtain, you want to make sure that you have a steel cable as opposed to a nylon cord. So the older curtains would have a nylon blind cord to lift the bottom tube up and into storage position. But that cord always used to stretch or snap, so a steel cable is a much better way to go. It doesn’t break, it doesn’t stretch, it’s much more durable.
Make sure your curtain is fire rated. That’s a really important thing so you don’t have compliance issues down the track. So that would be both the vinyl, and the mesh or the netting—make sure each of those components is individually fire tested to the relevant codes to make sure you don’t have any compliance issues.
Next thing to think about is the function. What do you want to do with this curtain? What’s the most important thing. Is it the budget? Or do you need to go around a perimeter, like an indoor track or something along those lines? Or are you looking for a curtain that stores up very, very neatly, where one of the roll systems would do a really good job? Or are you looking for something which is just a lower cost. So all of those things come into it; you need to figure out which are your main priorities, and then we can start to look at options which will fit those gaps for you.
The last thing to think about is the mounting. So there are different ways to mount curtains depending on the curtain style. Some curtains will require a dedicated steel beam to be in place. And those curtains are going to cost more, because you have to factor in the cost of the steel. So if you can avoid going for systems like that, and look at some of the more modern systems which will attach to existing purlins or can be adapted to use an existing structure, that’s going to save you more money in the long time. It’s not going to compromise the curtain, but it’s going to give you just as good a result and you won’t have to go for that extra cost.
So I hope that’s some interesting things for you to have a think about. If you have any questions, of course, please just give us a call. We’re always happy to help.
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