Motorised Blinds & Automation
One button — or one app — for every blind in the house, including the ones over a double-volume stairwell that no wand will ever reach.
Fitted to how you actually want to live
Rechargeable battery motors need no wiring and suit a retrofit on an existing Chartwell home — charge every few months and forget about them. Wired 220V motors suit new builds and renovations, and are the better call for big or heavy systems and anything outdoors, where an electrician plans the run in at build stage.
From there it's a question of how you want to control things: a handset remote for one blind or a whole bank of them, an app so you can check "did I leave the west blinds up?" from the office, schedules that drop west-facing shading automatically at 15:00 in summer, and sensors that do the safety-critical work — sun sensors for comfort, wind sensors that retract awnings and external screens before a highveld storm can damage them.
- Rechargeable battery motors for a retrofit, no wiring needed
- Wired 220V motors for new builds and heavier exterior systems
- Sun sensors drop shading automatically on the hottest elevations
- Wind sensors retract awnings and external blinds before a highveld storm hits
- No dangling cords or chains — the safest operation there is
Where motorisation earns its keep: wide glass, high openings and anything living outside in a storm belt. Nothing in the Way, our free Chartwell Light Journal, explains why — and flags the power-routing question we have to answer on site.
Where motorisation is really the only practical option
Some windows simply won't take a chain. Spans too wide or heavy, blinds above stair voids or double-volume glass, and any concealed ceiling-recess system need a motor by design. Outdoors, external venetians, folding-arm awnings and zip screens are effectively always motorised, because a wind-sensor auto-retract is the only thing standing between the system and a highveld gust it wasn't built to survive.
Chartwell's larger, more open-plan homes lean into this naturally — a wall of glass looking over the paddocks is rarely one window, it's six or eight working together. Automation is what turns that into "one button, six blinds" instead of a daily chore. Quality motors are quiet, though not silent, and carry multi-year guarantees; battery motors just need that periodic charge, which we set clearly at quote stage, no surprises later.
What motorisation costs, product by product
Motorised shading is priced by whatever the motor turns, so the honest answer is a range: R2,500 to R7,500 per square metre installed across everything on this site, as a guide. A motorised sunscreen or blockout roller sits at R2,500 to R3,800. A motorised external venetian, out on the weather side, runs R4,500 to R6,500. A motorised folding-arm awning, priced on projection rather than glass, runs R5,500 to R7,500.
Those bands include the motor, the remote or wall control and the commissioning on the day. Electrical work is not included: a wired 220V motor wants a power point at the head of the opening, and that belongs to the electrician. Battery motors skip the cabling — useful in an older smallholding house where chasing a wall is a real job — and ask for a charging routine in exchange. Small blinds attract a minimum, and nothing is fixed until the free measure and the written quote.
Motorisation across the estate belt
Double-volume glazing in Helderfontein Estate, wide multi-panel walls in Dainfern and Kyalami, and busy family households in Broadacres & Cedar Lakes are where automation earns its keep fastest.
Not sure which windows need a motor?
Bring us your floor plan or just let us walk the house — a free in-home measure covers every window, motorised or not.
