Solar Shades in Pittsburgh, PA — Cut Glare, Block UV, Keep the View
Solar shades use technical mesh fabric to block UV and reduce glare while preserving your view through the window. Custom-fit for Pittsburgh homes and businesses. Free in-home consultation. Call (412) 634-5526.
- ★ Free in-home consultation
- ★ Licensed & insured installers
- ★ Lifetime workmanship warranty
- ★ Pittsburgh-based & family-owned
If your hardwood floors are fading in patches, your TV is washed out in the afternoon, or your home office screen has unbearable glare around 3 PM, solar shades are the fix. The fabric is a tight technical mesh — not opaque, not transparent — that blocks 90–95% of UV rays and most direct sun while letting you keep the view through the window. Penn Shades sells and installs custom solar shades for homes and businesses across the greater Pittsburgh area.
Signs You Need Solar Shades
The most common signals: there's a faded stripe of hardwood, carpet, or rug right where the afternoon sun crosses it. Your leather couch or chair has cracked or lightened in a specific spot. Photos, prints, or artwork hanging on the sun-facing wall have lost color over the last few years. You can't watch TV in the family room between 2 and 5 PM in summer without closing curtains, which makes the room feel cave-like. Your south- or west-facing home office forces you to sit at an angle to avoid screen glare on your monitor.
These aren't urgent crises but the damage compounds. Hardwood fading and leather sun-damage don't reverse — once the color is lost, it's lost. A solar shade in a 3–5% openness fabric blocks roughly 90–95% of incoming UV from the moment it's installed. The longer you wait, the more permanent damage your floors and furniture absorb.
One note on privacy: solar shades give daytime privacy from outside views (when the inside is darker than outside) but they do not provide nighttime privacy — when the inside is lit, you can be seen through the mesh. If nighttime privacy matters for a room, we'll talk about pairing solar shades with a blackout layer or drapery during your consultation.
Our Solar Shades Options
We install four kinds of solar shades. Interior Solar Shades mount inside the room against the window — the most common residential choice. They're a clean, modern, low-profile option and they handle glare and UV without changing the look of your home's exterior. Exterior Solar Shades mount outside on the home's exterior wall or window frame — they stop the sun before it ever hits the glass, which makes them dramatically more effective at keeping the room cool in the summer. They're the right pick for west-facing rooms that overheat in July and August, large sunroom or atrium glass, and any window where reducing summer A/C bills matters.
Motorized Solar Shades add remote, smartphone app, voice, or sun-sensor control — they can be set to lower automatically when the sun hits a certain angle, so the shade is doing its job even when you're not home. They're popular in big-window great rooms, second-story windows, and as a bundle with smart-home systems. Commercial Solar Shades are the heavy-duty version for offices, medical practices, restaurants, hotels, and multi-tenant buildings — fire-rated fabric options, dual-shade setups (solar plus blackout on the same window), and motorized solutions that scale across dozens of windows.
Solar Shades for Pittsburgh Homes & Businesses
Pittsburgh sun is more intense than people expect. We're at the same latitude as parts of southern Spain and Italy, and our south- and west-facing summer afternoons are strong enough to fade hardwood floors measurably in a single summer. Older homes in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and the East End often have south-facing front rooms with original hardwood floors that show classic sun-fade stripes near the windows. Newer builds in Cranberry, Wexford, Fox Chapel, and Sewickley Heights tend to have huge west- or south-facing glass walls in great rooms that overheat in summer and lose A/C effectiveness — solar shades make those rooms usable again.
Downtown Pittsburgh offices, especially in glass-heavy buildings, run into glare issues that solar shades fix without going completely dark. We install across Pittsburgh, Moon Township, Coraopolis, Sewickley, Robinson, Carnegie, Bridgeville, Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, Bethel Park, Cranberry, Wexford, McCandless, Fox Chapel, and surrounding western Pennsylvania communities.
What to Expect
Call (412) 634-5526 or book online for a free in-home consultation. Our installer brings physical openness samples — the difference between 3%, 5%, and 10% openness fabric is significant and needs to be seen in your own light. We talk through your specific issue (glare, UV damage, room overheating, or a mix of all three), measure every window, recommend the right openness level for each window's orientation, and quote with a fixed price. Solar shades typically ship in 7–14 days from order. Install is one visit, 1–3 hours.
Why Choose Penn Shades for Solar Shades
Family-owned, Moon Township-based, licensed and insured Pennsylvania installers. Free in-home consultation with real openness samples and professional measuring, upfront fixed pricing, lifetime workmanship warranty on our installation. We install the shades we sell — no subcontracting — and we'll tell you straight if a solar shade isn't the right call for a particular room and a different treatment fits better.
Want to see the rest of what we install? Visit the Penn Shades main site for our full range of window treatments and smart film.
Pick the right solar shades for your space
Interior Solar Shades
Inside-mount, clean low-profile look — the most common residential choice.
Learn More →Exterior Solar Shades
Outside-mount — stops sun before it hits the glass for hot rooms.
Learn More →Motorized Solar Shades
Remote, app, voice, or sun-sensor automation for hands-free control.
Learn More →Commercial Solar Shades
Heavy-duty hardware and motorized systems for offices and hospitality.
Learn More →Book your free in-home consultation
Every Pittsburgh summer fades your floors a little more. Call (412) 634-5526 for a free in-home consultation, or book online — solar shade projects typically install within 2–3 weeks, often in time to make a real difference this summer.