The most common complaint in room reviews isn’t the bed, and it isn’t the wifi either: it’s the blade of light that slips between curtain and wall at five in the morning. We make up contract curtains to the window opening surveyed on site, with a minimum overlap of 15 cm on each side and 25 cm below the sill, because a 100% blackout fabric is useless if light gets in around the edges. Every fabric we supply is Class 1 for fire reaction, with certification and approval issued to the property and ready to file in the fire register.
Blackout is a matter of geometry
A three-layer blackout fabric stops all the radiation that passes through it. The point is that no guest complains about light coming through the fabric: they complain about light coming around it. The three classic leaks are the side edge, the gap between the two centre panels, and the space between track and ceiling.
We solve them with precise measurements. The panel must extend at least 15 cm past the window reveal on each side, the track is mounted to the ceiling or on a bracket 12 cm above the lintel, and the two centre panels must overlap by 20 cm with interlocking gliders that keep them together even when a guest closes them in a hurry. At the bottom, the panel drops to within 1.5 cm of the floor if it’s a floor-length curtain, or 25 cm below the sill if it stops higher.
Where there’s no side space to stack the panel, which happens often in small rooms, we switch to a Roman blind or a roller blind with aluminium side channels that close off both edges. The side channel is the only way to get a roller blind to serious blackout standard: without it, there’s always a millimetre of gap on each side that turns into a line of light on the ceiling at night.
Blackout quality weighs on guest ratings as much as the mattress does, and it’s one of the few factors that genuinely make a hotel room feel welcoming.
Class 1, and it has to be the right certificate
Curtains fall among materials liable to catch fire on both faces, so the technical rule for hospitality premises requires a fire reaction class no higher than 1. It isn’t negotiable, and it’s checked during the site inspection, along with the rest of what fire safety regulations require of fabrics and curtains.
The document you need isn’t the fabric’s technical data sheet. You need the declaration of conformity in situ, which links that batch of fabric to that approval certificate and to that specific property, signed by whoever fitted it. It’s common to find hotels with genuinely fire-resistant fabrics and paperwork that’s useless because it’s made out to the roll rather than to the installation. What has to be in the file changes depending on the material, and the fire-resistance certificate for furniture follows its own paper trail, with Class 1 IM reserved for upholstered pieces, which has nothing to do with Class 1 for curtains.
Watch out for fabrics made fire-resistant by impregnation: the treatment wears off after washing, typically after five or six cycles, and from that point the certification no longer covers anything. On our room curtains we only use fibres that are fire-resistant by composition, Trevira CS polyester or similar, which stay Class 1 for the fabric’s entire life and wash at 40 degrees without losing anything.
Types of curtain
Double curtain: sheer and blackout
The standard in four-star rooms. An inner sheer panel, in voile or technical linen, that gives diffused light and privacy during the day, and an outer blackout panel that runs on a second track. Two-way aluminium track, wand or side-cord control. Fabric consumption of 2 to 2.5 times the track width for a full, generous fold.
Roman blind
Used when the window is narrow or when a radiator cover, a desk or a reveal at the side stops the panel from being stacked. It rises horizontally, with internal battens every 25 or 30 cm. It takes up only the depth of the window and nothing more, but you need to allow for the stacked height, which on heavy blackout fabrics reaches 20 cm.
Roller blind with cassette and side channels
The most compact solution for city hotels and rooms with ribbon windows. Painted aluminium cassette, U-shaped side channels that eliminate light at the edges, technical blackout fabric. Can be motorised with a quiet 24V tubular motor, with a wall control next to the bed.
Pelmet and cassette
Used to hide the track, the motors and often the fan coil duct too. We make it padded and upholstered in the same fabric as the headboard, or in plasterboard with a trim profile, depending on how the ceiling is built. Typical height between 18 and 25 cm, with enough internal clearance for the gliders to pass through.
Curtains for lobbies, meeting rooms and restaurants
Here the fabric is almost always decorative and its role is acoustic. A heavy panel of 300 g/m² with generous folds absorbs a noticeable amount of reverberation and changes the sound of a breakfast room with a hard floor. Class 1 still applies here too, even where the room isn’t an escape route.
The numbers that matter on a fabric
Martindale abrasion rating tells you nothing useful about a curtain, because nobody rubs against one. It matters instead on seating upholstery, where anything under 50,000 cycles isn’t worth working with, and lobby armchairs call for 80,000 or 100,000. The figures that really matter on a curtain fabric are colour fastness to light, which should be at least 5 on the blue scale if the window faces south, and shrinkage on washing, which should stay under 2%, because a panel that shortens by four centimetres after its first wash has to be remade.
On chair covers and sofas in common areas we also assess cleanability with chlorine-based detergents, which housekeeping teams use more than they let on, and resistance to pilling. On this point, comparing Martindale rating, fire resistance and washability of contract fabrics is worth more than any sample book laid out on the table.
Survey, making-up, fitting
We survey room by room, because in a hotel built in the 1970s two nominally identical windows can differ by two or three centimetres, and a curtain cut to the average shows immediately. The survey produces a table by room number with the window opening, ceiling height, fixing type and any obstacles.
Making-up takes between 25 and 35 working days depending on the fabric. Fitting is done by our own teams, even while the property stays open, floor by floor, with rooms handed back the same day: on a 60-room hotel, installation wraps up in five or six days. If the furniture is also being replaced, the track often runs above the panelling and needs to be coordinated at the design stage, not on site.
For a quote we need the number of rooms, rough window measurements and a photo per room type. You can request a quote attaching just the floor plan of a typical floor if that’s all you have.
Frequently asked questions
Can fire-resistant curtains be washed normally?
It depends on how they’re made fire-resistant. Fabrics that are fire-resistant by fibre composition can be washed at 40 degrees in an industrial washing machine indefinitely without losing Class 1 status. Fabrics treated by impregnation lose the treatment after five or six washes and need to be re-treated by an authorised company, which reissues the certificate.
How much does it cost to replace the curtains in a 40-room hotel?
The real range runs from 180 to 450 euros per room for a double curtain on a track, fabric and fitting included, and it depends almost entirely on the fabric’s weight and the width of the windows. Motorised roller blinds with side channels sit at the higher end because electrification comes into play.
Is Class 1 required in guest rooms too, or only on escape routes?
In guest rooms too. Escape routes carry stricter requirements that also cover floors and wall coverings, but materials that can burn on both faces need Class 1 everywhere in the property.
Can you fit curtains without closing the hotel?
Yes, that’s how we normally work. We agree with management which floors to free up, we remove and refit room by room, and the room is back on sale the same day. We only ask that the rooms being worked on are vacated by nine in the morning.