Have you done a search of the forum? We've had this discussion several times in the last year and there is a lot of good information on those threads.

I've always used HD and I'm happy with the product and support. They can break and HD will stand behind their products. Waiting for my last batch of HD blinds for our guest house to arrive. I did the main house in 3 stages, mostly because I couldn't decide what I wanted! It did spread out the costs! Even in the guest house I first used the temporary $10 blinds until I decided what I really wanted on the windows. Took me about a year to get around to making the decision.

Thanks for the info! I read several posts on the subject and I found lots about HD, but I didn't find that much about Graber shades. I'm curious to hear if people's experience with Graber was good- it's more in our budget and seems fine to me.

I purchased 6 Bali double-cell shades (Northern LIghts) from Stevesblinds.com during a sale (they always have what seems is a never ending sale). We got cordless (free upgrade) and really like them. We push them up and down daily and they are very well made, and very soft (not cheap, crunchy feeling). Supposedly you can scrunch them up and they bounce right back into shape but I haven't tried that. In other parts of our house, the PO put in Hunter Douglas mini blinds and a (gasp) vertical blind on a doorwall. While I hate the look of the vertical blind, it is top notch, as are the mini blinds. When we first moved in I called Hunter Douglas to come to the house for my 6 windows. The rep warned me it would be about $400 a window - I almost had a heart attack - she quickly added they are guaranteed for life, though! The Bali's cost me around $83 a window and we hung them ourselves without any problem. Sorry, I don't know anything about Graber, but I would definitely recommend Bali.

I have had Hunter Douglas top down bottom up cellulars for years. Installed in 1994 and they still look almost like new. They really do stand by their product as I have had to have a couple of them repaired when the cords broke. I did have to pay a minimal fee to do so (I think it was just for shipping, but I don't remember). I just shipped them out and they repaired them and returned them to me.

This post was edited by zoe52 on Wed, Oct 23, 13 at 1:08

Just wanted to check in with group and see where Smith and Noble fits in the cost benefit tradeoff. It is easy to get quotes from everyone, but more difficult to understand what will hold up.

Also want cordless top/down - bottom/up with long tall windows - some seem to have length limits and wonder why this would be so variable? Maybe the mechanism?

I just learned that Graber is offering a free upgrade with their top/down-bottom up shade for the next 3 months. I think that is what I heard, I was too busy looking at the samples and deciding that I had better bring in pictures to show her the look I was going for.

Myfirsthouse-What did you decide to go with?

I have double cellular shades from blinds.com, their own brand, throughout my mountain home. They are very effective for energy savings. Be sure to ask for free color samples which are mailed quickly. Customer service is good and the prices can't be beat.

I put all HD shades in our new home last spring . If you are a Costco member you can get them from them for at least 30% below what you were probably quoted. For their price they send their contracted decorator to accurately measure windows, help with various choices and place order. They also send professional installer to install.

We bought one Graber shade from a local store to see how it worked out before doing the whole house.
The customer support is good -- they came out three times and replaced the shade at no cost since we had trouble with it, but even the third one has a poor mechanism for the cord that raises and lowers it. The shade itself is not bad -- decent quality that seems durable. The first shade was too short, and the second had a failed cord mechanism. The colors were exactly what we had selected.

We got Levelor top down shades for our new build house from Lowe's when they were on sale. Had them install them and have been very happy. Have room darkening in the bed rooms and it really makes a difference.

Ana—I’m guessing the OP has purchased her blinds already since this was from 5+ years ago.

But I haven’t, and I just reviewed all of this so thank you, Ana.

@nhbaskets: My comments were to warn others off these very expensive, problematic Hunter Douglas blinds. My experience some 7yrs later than the original post should be obvious: as it serves a warning that HD has NOT improved their products in the 7yrs and there remain various challenges for obtaining the required ongoing parts/repairs/service that potential customers may not be fully aware of when considering HD blinds. Most intelligent people could have garnered that much from my post without needing a full explanation for me posting. I'm sorry you are so challenged.

Good grief. Sorry you feel the need to bash someone on a thread that is over 7 years old for a comment made a year ago. Hope that stroked your ego. Have a nice life.

Hunter Douglas has reached the point that many manufacturers do in their lifecycle. They are far too expensive for the quality of the product and are simply living on their name for the time being. I have Hunter Douglas, Levelor and Bali. From a homeowner perspective all are equivalent quality for a product that does very little and basically have to look good. My recent 5 sets of Bali blinds are excellent blinds at about 2/3 the price of Hunter Douglas. Don't spend your time or money on Hunter Douglas. Levelor is still a good alternative and Bali is an excellent choice.

nhbaskets - In consideration of others, please withhold commenting (anywhere) unless you have something relevant/contributory to add. If you held to that standard here, you wouldn't have posted anything at all.

UPDATE FOR THOSE CONSIDERING HUNTER DOUGLAS PRODUCTS: Be advised that the mfr makes certain parts obsolete 10yrs after introducing a particular model - meaning you will eventually suffer having to replace the entire system over a part failure and/or having discontinued/changed fabrics not match among the series of Silhouettes and Luminettes should you need to replace a panel. This is also something not made apparent to customers who would spend thousands of dollars on Hunter Douglas. In fairness, it may be the industry standard to discontinue/update/change products every 10yrs - but had I considered that, as well as the challenges finding certified HD techs to repair, the limitations of the warranty putting me on the hook for hundreds of dollars for parts and service calls/hourly labor, I would have certainly sought another solution than drop $15K on Hunter Douglas.

I just went thru a mess with Bali and Graber both owned by Spring Window. They use cheapo Fedex whose Troutdale hub is a black hole for anything shipped. Endless threads on this on Reddit. Lowes staff is sick of the complaints regarding Fedex too but execs at Lowes still support these brands. I canceled the order since they could never get it to arrive in full. I waited over and over again for delivery based on Fedex lies. Just done. The Graber brand charges way more than the Bali brand but they use the same parts! The quality control is not great since Spring Window has them made in Mexico and shipped across the border and then uses Fedex zonal shipping which is the cheapest worst black hole shipping method. The beads get sucked into the clutches way too easily. On my testing blackout and solar shades I found the blackout had glue on it which made a tearing sound with closing them. I cleaned off the glue but the glue ruined the finish on the vinyl. They sent a replacement and realized they cut the first one wrong and was narrower! Dealing with Lowes escalation department is a joke and they bully consumers when those customers have had it with all the games. They requested that I either donate the only two blinds and want me to drive around and take care of that or they wanted me to cut them up and send a picture and then put in my garbage. I told them have Fedex come pick them up since they caused most of the problems with all this. I also had to say I will then submit a claim with my credit card if they won't give me a refund. Since they want to play hardball with all this. Lowes and Spring Window do not allow you to pick the shipper either. Also with zonal cheap delivery with Fedex neither Fedex or Spring window scan the packages but load them up on pallets and ship them to regional hubs and then they are scanned and then take the slowest method to the destination. I watched how the tracking stopped at three CA cities that were not far from each other before they headed north to Oregon. Talk about your pony express. Then thru all that they lose them. Won't do that gain and won't use any online retailer that uses Fedex.

I don't mind if things take longer but I really do mind being lied to over and over. That was the worst of it. I don't like the fact that Lowes knows there is a problem with Fedex and still puts their customers thru that meat grinder shipper. I am kind of rethinking what to do with this but right now this past year with the pandemic and so many retailers lying and not being honest about availability etc I am just tabling anymore buying until things improve.

Also Fedex lost the Amazon contract this past year. I know Fedex likes to say they dumped Amazon but in realty Amazon waited till they were able to deliver 50% of everything before they made their insulting offer to Fedex. The offer was so bad Fedex had to turn it down. So I get the frustration Amazon had with Fedex and made their point that way. But I see their stock dropping and top executives cashing out more stock which they tend to cash out when the stock is doing better. So it wouldn't surprise me if Fedex finally files bankruptcy since it has had financially problems for decades. If Fedex can't be valued more during a pandemic when folks are stuck with using shippers that says a lot about the lack of confidence investors have with this company overall. Fedex saves money subbing out workers and trucks and still they can't get things done right. Whereas UPS hires their own workers, owns their own trucks and pay benefits and the staff have a vested interest to getting things done. Plus they make sure the fleet is has regular maintenance done to keep the trucks in operation. I bet they have less stealing too.

Just to clarify, my review is strictly regarding the HD 'motorized' products (i.e. any HD product ending in 'ettes'). If you will notice, the people who rave about HD products are those who purchased 'non-motorized CELLULAR SHADES or traditional non-motorized WOOD BLINDS -- and NOT the HD 'motorized' products among HD's higher end product lines that are excessive in price for what you ultimately get in product (un)reliability. The engineering is not good in the motorized products. The plastic 'star gear' is what rotates these blinds carries all the torque for tilting the blinds for the length of the window blind. It ultimately fractures over time until it fails completely - you will even hear cracking sounds as it turns the rod just months into use. The worm gear is metal but it manages to get out of alignment and needing full replacement - and it is not a DIY job because it requires you take the entire blinds down to access (see the YouTube videos on what these repairs require). What I am now looking to replace these $15K Hunter Douglas Luminettes with is the manual Smart Blinds by Norman Graber and had I known of these NG products first, they would have been my first choice. Cost is about 10% less than HD, however since the NG products are manual, they are beautiful and there will be no motorized components failing that I am left to reconcile or require expensive parts and hunt for qualified techs to mitigate just to have functioning blinds.