Local Shutter InstallersQuestions · Cost
Fitting a roller shutter yourself
Updated
The curtain is heavy, the measure has to be right, and the guides have to be square. A DIY kit can void the motor warranty and leave a box that lets in water.
A fitted illustration
This is closer to installing a door than to hanging a blind. Most households should pay for the hang.
Fitted illustration for Fitting a roller shutter yourself in Belfast: £4,920 at September 2026 prices, for this 3.2 by 2.35 m opening with a wired motor. The figure allows a front-mounted aluminium curtain and ordinary fixing. It does not include scaffold, a rebuilt soffit, planning drawings, or a new window. A second opening on the same visit usually costs less than the first, because the van is already there. Compare two quotes only when the slat, the box and the drive match.
- wired motor on a 3.2 by 2.35 m opening
- Colour as a RAL or foil reference, not a dusk photo
- Scaffold, electrics and making good listed or excluded
- Lanterns and side lights named or left out
Heat, so the price has a job
The worked opening for Fitting a roller shutter yourself is 3.2 m wide by 2.35 m high, 7.52 square metres of glass. This figure puts 620 watts per square metre on the pane and uses a g-value of 0.7, about 3264 watts into the room if the curtain is up. An opaque external shutter, taken as stopping 85 percent of that gain while it is fully down, leaves about 490 watts and keeps about 2774 watts out. That is a noon figure for comparison. An internal blind does not get the same reduction. For Fitting a roller shutter yourself, use the noon figure to compare two openings on the same house, then let a measured survey replace the figure.
Winter on the same opening
Winter figure for Fitting a roller shutter yourself: glass at 1.4 W/m2K, 7.52 square metres, a 12 degree inside-outside gap and eight night hours. The bare pane is about 1.01 kWh a night on that crude sum. A closed shutter cutting about 24 percent of the flow leaves 0.77 kWh and saves about 0.24 kWh a night, only while it is down. Open it when you want winter sun.
When the cheaper quote is incomplete
Stop Fitting a roller shutter yourself if the frame cannot take a guide and the wall beside it is crumbling. A photograph is not a manufacturing size.
How to use the figure
The 3.2 by 2.35 metre opening inside Fitting a roller shutter yourself is there so a quote has something to disagree with. If the tape gives a different size, the tape wins.
The example drive is a wired motor, and the illustration is £4,920. A belt, a wired motor and a solar motor can share a curtain and still be different jobs. Compare those lines, not a single bold total.
What the survey still has to write down
For Fitting a roller shutter yourself, ask where the box lands, what colour reference will be ordered, and how the curtain opens when the motor is dead. Those three answers move the job more than a rounded price.
Leave the lantern, the side light and the next elevation off the order unless they are drawn. Fitting a roller shutter yourself covers one kind of opening. The house may have three.
When I would not order yet
Fitting a roller shutter yourself should wait if the opening is an escape door with no way to raise a dead motor, or if the front is the elevation a conservation area was drawn to protect.
A photograph is not a manufacturing size. Two quotes for Fitting a roller shutter yourself only compare when the slat, the box and the drive are the same kind of thing.
Questions worth asking the fitter
Is the price on this page a quote?
No. £4,920 illustrates Fitting a roller shutter yourself for a 3.2 by 2.35 metre opening with a wired motor, at September 2026 rates. Your survey replaces it.
Does the shutter cover every pane?
It covers the opening it is built for. Here that example is 7.52 square metres. A roof lantern, a side light or the next elevation is another line.
What if planning is unclear?
Do not pay the factory for Fitting a roller shutter yourself until a listed building, a conservation front, a flat or a shopfront has a written answer. Ordinary rear walls on houses are sometimes simpler.
What should two quotes share?
The same openings, the same slat type, and the same drive. Fitting a roller shutter yourself uses a wired motor in the example so you can see how much the motor choice moves £4,920.