Blinds & Shutters visited Guthrie Douglas to take a closer look at its TESS range of solar shading systems

If you take a look around the major cities today, a clearly apparent trend is for buildings with increasingly greater areas of glazing.

The benefits of natural daylight in buildings are well known, people respond better when they have a view of the outside world and work better under controlled natural daylight conditions. However, with the drive towards reducing energy consumption, a key objective for most building designers is to maximise the use of natural light without the problems of glare or excessive solar heat gain. With this in mind, Guthrie Douglas has been busy developing its TESS range of Solar Shading Systems.

Guthrie Douglas was established in 1981 and has been supplying motorisation systems for retractable solar shading, rolling shutters and industrial doors for over 25 years. In 1988 Dr Guthrie developed the company’s Tension Shading System (TESS). This was the first single motor, single roller tension blind system using a conventional tubular motor and remains the core of the product range today. TESS is a range of systems for operating sunscreens on vertical, horizontal and sloping glazing – including sideways and bottom up applications. It is suitable for both internal and external installations and is aimed mainly at the commercial building market but is also used with some applications on larger domestic buildings.

Through its continuous product development the company now offers a comprehensive range of TESS systems suited to a range of fabrics which can meet both the aesthetic requirements and the technical performance criteria of the specifier. The current Guthrie Douglas range includes the original TESS 100 internal system through to the external wire guided TESS 440 system for applications up to 16 square metres. For larger areas the TESS 200 (internal) and TESS 512 (horizontal - internal or external) systems can cover up to 60 and 100 m2 respectively per individual system.

Business has been strong for Guthrie Douglas with the company reporting a 20 per cent increase this year and 50 per cent increase on solar shading activity in the last two years.

Since its launch in 2005 the TESS 140 now accounts for 40 per cent of what Guthrie Douglas supplies on the shading side of its business. It is suitable for skylights, vertical and sloping glazing up to 18m2. The company has been overwhelmed by the interest shown by architects and installers on a global scale and feels it has particularly caught their imagination because, according to Sales & Marketing Manager Martin Willis: ‘From an aesthetic point of view, the neat and unobtrusive but strong stainless steel wire guides at each side of the system blend in seamlessly with glazed atria and windows.’ As highlighted with the company’s recent installation at Le Petit Palais, Paris, TESS is perfectly appropriate for installations on both historic buildings and modern architecture. Martin explained: ‘TESS blends in perfectly with old and modern architecture thanks to the stainless steel wire side guide. It can be a historic old building or a new build, it doesn’t matter, it works in all situations.’

The TESS 140 also benefits from the option of a SIMU radio motor, which can be used with single and 5 channel transmitters, for the comfort of the user and eliminating costly wiring. This also enables the installer to set and reprogramme the system limits and intermediate stopping position directly from the handset.

Highlighting the company’s experience and expertise in solar shading and automation, Guthrie Douglas has developed Pilot PC total shading software. The company recognised that the problems caused with complex shaped glass buildings were not just in the shape of the shading systems required or the plane of operation but also in the control requirements. Pilot PC is described as desktop computer based total automated control. It is a completely automatic solution, deploying or retracting blinds based on multiple external conditions.

With the range of TESS internal and external shading systems alongside the Simu radio motors and the Pilot PC it is clear that Guthrie Douglas has the complete package to meet any solar shading requirement.

Martin explained: ‘If someone comes to us we have the full range of tension systems, window coverings and automation control products. We have the expertise to work with customers and partners to produce the right solution.’

The company’s expertise is on show throughout the world from Europe and the Middle East to South America. But the company is not content to rest on its laurels as Martin explained: ‘it’s important to educate architects at an early stage to alleviate the shading issue at a later date. We also need to raise awareness of the benefits of external shading in the UK.’

The European Solar Shading Organisation states that over 40 per cent of EU primary energy consumption goes into buildings and the European Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings says that energy consumption of buildings needs to be reduced by 20 per cent. These are big goals, and the only way they will ever be achieved is through education and innovation, as highlighted by Guthrie Douglas’ continuous investment in product development and training, which highlights the important role solar shading can play in addressing these issues.