Specifying a roller shade is more than just for aesthetic purposes. Selecting the correct performance for a fabric is critical to the interior comfort and energy savings, and should be looked at as another high performance component within a building system. Lutron recently developed a powerful online software tool, Performance Shading Advisor, to simplify the daunting task of selecting an appropriate fabric based off of the project needs. The user is able to input information about a building's geographic location, façade orientation, window properties, room reflectance's, etc. The Shading Advisor then generates recommended fabrics, based on a unique daylighting algorithm developed by Lutron and Purdue University, depending on whether the priority is glare reduction, energy savings, or view preservation. From here you can also order samples, save project information, and even export reports and specifications.

In this list of recommended fabrics is a new certification of fabric called Theia. Theia performance fabrics are specific fabrics available only from Lutron that guarantee to be within a certain tolerance of performance than what is specified. After in depth research, it was discovered that key fabric properties such as openness factor and visible light transmittance could vary greatly within manufacturers guidelines, which negatively affects the building design intent. Theia fabrics are held to a new standard of tightly control variations that guarantee the openness factor tolerance to be +/- 0.75%, and the Visible light transmittance (Tv) tolerance: +/- 1%. Ultimately this ensures that the fabric that was deliberately selected based on performance metrics is delivered as specified.

So the next time you are uncertain as to which of our 1500 fabrics to specify, be sure to use the Performance Shading Advisor and even consider a Theia compliant fabric. Contact Valerie McKee to see samples.