Curtains in Cardinia.

Out at Cardinia the housing is older and more rural than the estate belt, with farmhouses, brick homes from the seventies and eighties, and outbuildings that have been converted at some point. What they have in common is exposure. There are no neighbouring houses to break the wind, no fences and few trees close enough to shelter the glass, so windows take weather from every direction.

The windows themselves are usually large and single glazed, often in aluminium or timber frames that have had a long life. A big pane like that is the coldest surface in the room on a winter night by a wide margin. Warm air from the heater drifts across the ceiling, touches the glass, gives up its heat, sinks down the pane as a cold draught along the floor and pulls more warm air across behind it. That convection loop runs all night, and it is the reason a rural living room can feel cold at your feet with a heater still going.

What actually stops it.

A curtain interrupts the loop only if it closes the whole path. It has to be sealed at the top, either with a pelmet or by fixing the track tight to the ceiling or a bulkhead, so warm air cannot pour over the rod and down behind the fabric. It has to return to the wall at both sides so the air cannot slip around the ends. And it has to reach the floor, because a curtain that stops at the sill lets the cold air spill straight out at the bottom. Do those three things with a modest lined curtain and you will get more benefit than from an expensive heavy curtain hanging loose on a rod. The full explanation is in the thermal curtains guide.

Wood heating changes the calculation.

Most Cardinia houses we visit have a wood heater. Wood heat is radiant and it swings, hot while the fire is running and dropping away quickly once it dies down overnight. That makes overnight sealing more valuable than it would be in a house running continuous ducted heating, because you are trying to hold the heat you made earlier rather than top it up constantly. It also means clearances have to be checked. At the measure we confirm the distance from heater and flue to any fabric and adjust the layout where needed.

Practical realities on rural properties.

• Openings are often out of square, so made to measure is not optional
• Fixings vary, we check whether the reveal, the bulkhead or the timber is the sound anchor
• Dust and insects mean washable or easily wiped linings are worth asking about
• Very wide openings are priced on total track length, not on window count
• Where a rod is already up, adding a pelmet and a return is often the cheapest real gain

Cardinia pricing.

Triple weave blockout runs $300 to $750 per window and lined blockout pinch pleat $350 to $900. A thermal or coated lining upgrade is $60 to $180 per window. Fabric-covered pelmets are $180 to $450 and timber or MDF $200 to $600. Interlined curtains, which add a soft bump layer for warmth and quiet, run $600 to $1,400. If you already have curtains you like, adding a lining to an existing pair is $150 to $400. A whole three or four bedroom home with bedroom and living blockouts sits between $3,800 and $9,500 supplied and installed, with a three to five week lead time. See the full 2026 costing for how those figures are built.

The free in-home measure.

We come out with samples, measure every opening, check squareness and fixings, look at heater clearances and note the windows doing the most damage to your heating bill. You get a written quote itemised by room, and if part of the house genuinely does not need doing we will tell you that too.