**** Day Night Shades ***

I've replaced the cord in our blinds with 30# clear fishing line. Works extremely well & blinds move smoothly. The biggest problem most folks have is self caused by pulling the strings to tight. They only need to be adjusted such that they slide evenly and stay in position when moved. Too tight equals excessive wear & harder movement. They can always be retightened.

I also bought Levolor's from Lowe's. Room darkening,and repels the heat.

After going through the trouble to restring one of my shades in the bedroom, my dog freaked out during a thunderstorm and tore up the other one. At $125 to replace it I think we are going to remove them and put up regular blackout curtains.

I replaced mine with curtains / rods. Changed out the fabric on the valances as well - quite easy to do as they are hot glued / stapled together. Now I can wash the curtains as often as I like.

When mine broke I tied it back together with a square knot. There is plenty of extra sting to do this. Sometimes the little grommet at the top falls out and the string will rub causing it to break. Also when you wrap the string around the plastic tensioner make sure the string is not too tight, you want to set it so the night shade does not vibrate down when traveling.

I sent mine back to the manufacturer - paid for shipping - but they did the restringing for free. The toughest part was accessing the top release for the day-night shade, that was tricky. I had 3 shades go at about the same time, so I sent them all off - they were 8 yrs old at the time, I was pleasantly surprised at the free repair. Course, would have been cheaper yet if I did the restringing, but still much cheaper than new anything.

I taught myself to restring the blinds several years ago and have been using the cord from Specialty Blinds or Joann Fabrics, even Wal Mart. I've been wanting to try fishing line. I couldn't find the braided line so I bought 30# clear line at a sporting goods store and retstrung 2 small ones several months ago. It's working pretty smooth but the metal parts are scraping against the line and I don't know how long this will last. I don't like the MCD shades because I keep my shades down while traveling (to keep heat out) and the MCD shades aren't connected at the bottom and flop around. To each his own!

I heard from one who restrung that 100 lb. test braided fishing line was best string and would last much longer than original .... Sounds logical.

Don't need MCD, just need to re-sting. OK, if you have A LOT of money then buy the MCD's as they are very good. If you prefer to keep a huge hunk of change in the bank then just re-string. There are great instructions available on line and the strings are pretty cheap. In an hour or 2 your blinds will be back in factory original condition and ready to serve you well for years to come.
Just ask me how I know!!!!

For the OP. If you decide to re-string them you can buy the string/cord at some sewing material shops.I bought 75 yards for less than the price of a "re-stringing kit"
After the first one,it's not all that difficult to do.I have re-done all of ours over the past 8 years of fulltiming.
For some unknown reason my DW insists that they should work properly.