A pleated day/night shade is not a roller blind with a spring inside a tube, which is the system most owners assume they have. It is two stacks of fabric threaded onto lift cords that pass through small holes punched in every pleat, and the shade stays where you leave it only because those cords are held under constant tension. On the RV style system, sold by Irvine Shade and Door as E-Z Lift and listed by United Shade as the alternative to a residential cord lock, the cords leave the bottom rail and terminate at cord retainer spools screwed to the wall below the window. Tension is set by a knot at each spool and by nothing else. Irvine states the target plainly: tighten the shade just enough to hold its position, and do not overtighten, because overtightening causes stiff operation and can cause product failure. A shade that creeps down overnight is a tension complaint long before it is a broken part.
Trace the cord path once and the repair logic stops being mysterious. A day/night shade carries two independent cord runs: one lifts the sheer day fabric from the bottom rail, the other lifts the opaque night fabric from the center rail, each threaded through its own column of pleat holes and anchored up in the headrail. That is roughly twice the cord and twice the wear points of a night-only shade in the same window. United Shade describes the E-Z Lift layout as cords permanently attached at the bottom corners of the window, which is what stops the shade banging against the wall while the rig is rolling. Irvine's operating instruction is to raise and lower only one rail at a time. Grabbing both rails together drags every cord in the assembly through one pinch point, and that is where a cord parts. Because the cord is the consumable and the fabric is the costly half, a snapped cord means restringing, not a new shade.
Diagnosis runs cheapest test first. Step one is the knot at each cord retainer spool: wrapping the cord one full turn around the spool, or unscrewing the spool, sliding it roughly two inches up the cords and tying a fresh knot about one inch from the existing one, is the manufacturer's own tension fix. Step two is symmetry, because Irvine's note is that tension must stay even on both sides or the shade hangs crooked, and a crooked shade wears one cord far faster than the other. Step three is the cord, checked for fuzzing and flat spots where it turns at the headrail. Step four is the fabric and the pleat holes, where a neglected shade stops being repairable.
Sunlight through glass is not filtered the way people assume. ASTM G24, the standard practice for exposing materials to daylight filtered through glass, notes that glass lots differ in ultraviolet transmittance particularly in the 300 to 320 nanometer band, and that variations in temperature, moisture and atmospheric contaminants significantly affect how fast solar radiation degrades a material. Behind a windscreen or a wide kitchen window, the pleated fabric and the lift cord absorb that energy at different rates. Deco day fabric is a light woven sheer, Stitchbond night fabric is heavier, and the braided cord is a thin polyester held permanently in tension, so the cord commonly loses its strength while the fabric still looks presentable. The shade that gets worked twice a day fails first, and it is nearly always the one the owner wants fixed rather than replaced. United Shade's care guidance closes the loop for storage: keep shades in the up position and cover the windows separately, never leave them down.
The economics are genuinely close, which is why an honest answer needs the shade in front of you. Restringing is labor-heavy and a wide day/night unit can absorb a large part of a working day, while a replacement pleated shade is a commodity item built to order. Sound fabric with one parted cord favors restringing; chalky, faded or split pleats do not. If replacement wins, measuring is where the job usually goes wrong. United Shade takes a quarter inch off the ordered width for an inside mount so the shade clears the window frame, adds half an inch overall on an outside mount to allow for the end caps, and builds an exact size order to the number given. Most fabrics run only to 72 inches wide, so anything wider is pieced into two panels and needs the owner's approval first. Confirm pleat size, five eighths of an inch or one inch, before ordering anything.
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Call 888-759-1438If the pleated fabric is sound, restringing is the repair. The cord is a consumable running through punched holes in every pleat, and replacing it restores the shade to full function. Replacement only becomes the better call when the fabric is faded, chalky or split at the pleat holes, because fresh cord in tired fabric simply tears out at the next pleat it passes through.
That is uneven cord tension, not a broken shade. Irvine Shade and Door's instructions warn that tension must be kept even on both sides or the shade will hang crooked. The fix is at the cord retainer spools: the knot on the slack side is re-tied about an inch further along the cord, or the spool is slid up roughly two inches and re-anchored, then both sides are tested together.
Our service call covers the trip out and the first hour on site at the rate in the pricing table on this page; anything past that first hour is quoted and approved before we carry on. A simple tension adjustment often finishes inside the call. No fixed price is quoted for a restring before the shade has been seen, because width and pleat count drive the time.
Check who made the shade first, because the two main suppliers give opposite instructions. Irvine Shade and Door's care sheet recommends clear Ivory dishwashing liquid mixed with water. United Shade forbids soap and water outright, specifying dry foam cleaner or a vacuum with an upholstery brush, because water strips the fire retardant guard and relaxes the pleats. Guessing wrong ruins the fabric.
No. United Shade's care guidance is to store shades in the up position and cover the windows with separate protection, such as cut cardboard. Shades stored down lose pleat retention, and in a closed-up rig through a humid summer the fabric sits still long enough for mildew spotting and for insects to settle into the headrail cavity. Shades up and windows blocked solves both problems.
Plan on it being the slow part of an interior visit rather than a quick fix. Every pleat has to be threaded in sequence on both the day and the night cord runs, then both sides tensioned and tested. A narrow bunk window is quick, a wide windscreen shade is not, and the same visit can usually absorb unrelated interior work such as a loose cabinet hinge while the shade is down.
Every figure on this page comes from a manufacturer document or a standards body, not from another repair site. Here is where each one comes from.
| Item | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Service call | $299 | Includes the trip out to your RV and the first hour on site |
| Work past the first hour | Quoted after diagnosis | We tell you what it will take before we carry on |
| Parts | Quoted per job | Special-order parts may need a deposit before we order them |
| Written estimate | No charge | You approve the estimate before any work starts |
The service call covers the trip out to your RV and the first hour on site. Anything beyond that depends on what we find, and we quote it and get your approval before carrying on.
The price ranges on this page come from our own recent jobs across Florida, not from an industry average. What you pay depends on the rig, the parts it needs and what we find on site, so we give you a written estimate before any work begins and you approve it first.