How to (maybe) repair a vinyl window shade

This week, the repair or replace dilemma reared its ugly head once again. This time, the culprit was the vinyl window shade in our bathroom. The only window in the bathroom is right in the tub, where it's regularly exposed to high levels of heat and moisture from the shower, which have apparently caused its vinyl material to pucker and warp slightly. This, in turn, resulted in a couple of small tears along the bottom seam, one of which has grown gradually bigger because I occasionally snagged it while squeegeeing the walls. Last week, after discovering that mildew was proliferating along these torn edges, I finally decided the problem had reached the point that we had to either repair the shade somehow or replace it. But which?

On the one hand, a new shade wouldn't be all that expensive. This one only cost around $10, but it also hadn't held up very well — so spending $10 another one just like it would probably mean resigning ourselves to spending another $10 on a replacement every year or so. Sure, we could easily afford that, but it seemed wasteful, particularly when the only part of the shade that's damaged is the bottom seam. There was still more than enough good material on the roller to cover the window, and it seemed ridiculous to just throw it away.

However, to get our money's worth out of this this still-useful material, we'd have to find some way to mend that tear, and that wasn't as simple a job as it sounded. When we encountered this same problem with our old bedroom window shade, we fixed it by applying a long strip of duct tape along the entire bottom seam, which enabled us to get another year or two of use out of the shade before the roller mechanism went kaput. But that was a blackout shade, so the duct tape applied to the back of the shade didn't actually show on the inside. This one is a translucent "light filtering" shade, so the duct tape would definitely be visible through the material. Plus, duct tape doesn't really hold up that well to moisture, so this would only be a short-term fix at best.

We've also tried fixing this problem on a bathroom shade with our hot glue gun. We cut off the damaged bottom portion of the shade, then put a dowel along the bottom edge to weigh it down, rolled up the vinyl material around it, and used hot glue to create a new seam. That repair held for a little while, but it didn't take long for heat and moisture to
loosen the glue's hold on the vinyl, and we eventually had to scrap the shade entirely and replace it with this one. So that, once again, was at best a short-term solution.

Thinking that there must surely be some kind of adhesive that could hold up in wet conditions, I started searching around online, and I discovered Tear-Aid Vinyl Repair. The manufacturer claims, and reviewers confirm, that this stuff can make a torn inflatable raft seaworthy again, so it seemed it should certainly be able to hold up on a vinyl shade that's only getting splashed with water, not submerged. And it was available at Dick's Sporting Goods, which is within striking distance of other stores where we shop regularly. The only catch: it was $10 for a kit that contained just one large patch (3" by 12"), one medium (1 3/8" square), and one small (7/8"). It would be good for maybe two or three repairs — if it worked at all. Was it worth the investment when we could just spend $10 on a new shade and be done with it?

Applying the guidelines I learned from Jeff Yeager, I decided that the answer was probably yes. For a tear this small, I reasoned, the $10 kit should be good for at least two repairs, which meant that the cost of the repair was only half the cost of the replacement. Spending $10 to replace both this shade and the next one that developed a tear would be cheaper than spending $20 to replace them both, not to mention less wasteful. So during our Saturday round of grocery shopping, we swung by Dick's and picked up a box of the Tear-Aid to attempt the repair.

However, when we opened the box, we realized there was an additional problem. According to the package, the kit was supposed to contain three patches, a 12" "reinforcement filament" for repairing tears on edges (like the one we had), two alcohol prep pads, and a set of instructions. That didn't sound like a very good value for $10, but we hadn't gotten even that much. Our kit contained only the large patch, the small patch, and the instructions — no medium patch, no reinforcement, no alcohol prep pads. It would still be enough to complete this one repair, but it might not be enough for even one more.

Our first instinct was to go back to Dick's and return it. But there were two problems with that: first, we'd already cut the small patch in two (to repair the smaller tear) before realizing the other parts were missing, so technically, we'd already used the kit at this point. And second, if we did go all the way back to Dick's the next day to return the kit, then what? Exchange it for another one that might also be defective? Or go back to the drawing board looking for something else we could use? I did manage to track down another product, Gear Aid Repair Tape, that might work, but it was only available at REI. The nearest store was in Princeton, which meant we'd probably have to wait until Thursday to pick it up. Faced with the choice of making a second trip to return the Tear-Aid, then yet another to pick up the alternative product (if it was available) and having to wait at least a week before we could attempt the repair again, or simply moving forward with the bird in the hand and getting the stupid thing fixed today, Brian decided to treat the $10 we'd spent as a sunk cost and forge ahead.

Even with the product in hand, however, it took us two attempts to actually make the repair. The first time we tried it, even though we'd allowed the shade to dry for a full 24 hours and it felt completely dry to the touch, the minute Brian tried to apply the patch to it, water squeezed out of the seam. He kept wiping it off and then trying again, and each time, water continued to squeeze out. Eventually, the small patch he'd cut (from half of the small one we'd been provided) was completely useless, and he just had to throw it out. So he had to hang the shade back up and gave it another 24 hours to dry, then tested the seam thoroughly to make sure there was no water left in it before attempting the repair again.

This time, fortunately, it went off without a hitch. First, after wiping the shade down with alcohol, he carefully applied the other half of the small patch to the small tear on the right side. This tear was small enough that even this tiny patch was big enough to wrap around to the back of the shade, sealing it on both sides. He also used scissors to round off the corners on the patch before applying it, so there would be no sharp edges for a squeegee or a fingernail to snag on and pull them loose.

Then, he cut a strip off the large patch that was just big enough to cover the larger tear — on one side, not both. Once again, he rounded off the corners before applying this patch to the front of the shade. Then he cut another one the same size, rounded it off similarly, and applied it to the back. This was less fiddly than trying to wrap the material around, and it seems about as secure. The repair isn't flawless — if you look carefully, you can still see the tear — but as long as it holds up, we won't complain. (We're giving it the rest of the day to dry before getting it wet, though, just to give it as good a chance as possible.)

So did we make the right choice? I guess it's too soon to say. We'll need to see how well this repair holds up, and compare it with how long the new shade took to get damaged in the first place. But one thing I can say for sure is that if I had to try it again, I wouldn't buy Tear-Aid. I'd wait until we could hit an REI and try the Gear Aid tape. It might not work as well, but it gives you nearly twice as much material (20" by 3") for half as much money — and since there's only one roll in the box, you know you're actually getting everything you pay for.