What it takes to motorise a curtain, and what moves the price

Motorised curtains are among the most visible parts of an automated villa, and their cost is among the hardest to guess from outside, because it is not one decision but several. We will not put a price in an article, since the honest figure depends on your openings, but we can show you what goes into each one and which choices move the number. By the end you should be able to read the curtain lines on a bill and understand why each one says what it does.

You choose opening by opening

Nobody motorises "the curtains" as a single item. In our designs, motorising is the client's choice, made opening by opening, and each motorised opening appears on the bill as a motor and a track. The first thing that sets the number, then, is simply how many openings you decide to motorise.

It is worth being deliberate about which ones. A long, heavy run across the glazing of the main living room is a very different proposition from a single small window in a dressing room, and nothing says they have to be treated alike. Choosing opening by opening lets you put motors where they will actually be used and leave the rest to be drawn by hand.

The motor and track are sized to the curtain

Once an opening is on the list, the next thing that moves its price is the curtain itself. Heavier and longer curtains need stronger motors and tracks, so the length of the run and the weight of the fabric both push the figure, and a lined, full-height drape across a wide opening asks far more of its motor than a light sheer across a narrow one.

The length comes from the drawings. The weight depends on the fabric, and if the fabric has not been chosen when the design is done, the bill does not pretend otherwise. Any fact the sizing depends on that is not yet known is printed as "to confirm", and a total that excludes open items says so beside the total. We would rather hand you a line that admits what it does not yet know than a motor that was guessed at.

Power at the head of the opening, planned at first fix

The part of a motorised curtain that has to be settled earliest is also the part nobody ever sees. A motor needs power at the head of the opening, where the track is fixed, and it needs a control channel so that the automation system can tell it what to do. Both have to be planned at first fix, the stage when cables and back boxes go into the building before the walls are finished and the ceilings are closed.

If this is decided in time, it is straightforward. If it is decided late, it means opening up finished work to bring power to a place it should already have reached. That is why each motorised opening appears in the contractor documents alongside every other device, with its location and the cable it needs, and why, if you are still undecided about an opening, first fix is the moment to settle it. It is far easier to leave power at the head of an opening you never motorise than to bring it there after the ceiling has closed.

It is also worth knowing whose work this is. The wiring itself belongs to the installer's scope and appears on the installer's invoice, not on ours; what we provide is the drawing that tells them where it goes.

Control rides the room's scene buttons

A motorised curtain does not bring its own keypad with it. Curtain control rides the room's scene buttons, so the scene that sets a room for the evening can draw the curtains as it sets the lights, and the entrance keeps its single control point rather than growing a second plate for the curtains alone. This follows from a rule that applies to every button we design: each one must name the scene or load it serves at that position, or it is deleted. A separate curtain keypad beside a perfectly good scene plate would rarely pass that test.

Who supplies the hardware, and why the bill says so

By default, curtain hardware is supplied through us, and the motors and tracks sit on the bill with everything else. Some clients would rather give the curtains to someone else, such as whoever is making the curtains, and that is entirely their decision. When they do, the bill does not simply leave the curtains out; it says so in an explicit exclusion line.

The reason is that silence on a bill is never neutral. A bill that quietly drops part of the scope looks cheaper than it is, and anyone comparing it with a bill that includes that part is comparing two different things without knowing it. The exclusion line makes sure nobody assumes that somebody else has the curtains covered. Hidden gaps, like hidden prices, protect the seller rather than the buyer.

Reading the curtain lines on your bill

Taken together, the cost of motorised curtains moves with how many openings you choose, how long and heavy each curtain is, and, as far as our bill is concerned, whether the hardware comes through us or is excluded by name. Your bill prices each opening separately, motor and track, with the rule that placed it written beside it, so you can see exactly what one more opening, or one fewer, would change. Send us your plans with the openings you have in mind, and the bill will show you the rest.