Two shutter styles sit on the same window and cover different amounts of it. Choosing between full height shutters vs cafe style shutters is usually treated as a question about light and privacy, and in a bedroom it is also a question about a building rule nobody mentions in a showroom. This guide reads both styles against the statutory guidance for England, and against what the seller publishes about each one.
This is an independent editorial review. Shutterly Fabulous did not review or approve this article.
Shutterly Fabulous Retail Ltd sells only in the United Kingdom, so this article is written for that market. No figure is quoted in or converted into another currency, and no rule from another country is applied to it.
The statutory guidance quoted below is Approved Document B, Volume 1, which supports the Building Regulations 2010 in England. It is guidance for building work rather than a product standard, it places no duty on a shutter maker, and it is set out here only because it describes the one part of a window that has to stay clear.
Full height shutters vs cafe style shutters, read in one table
| What you are comparing | Full height | Cafe style |
|---|---|---|
| Window area covered | The whole opening, top to bottom | The lower section only, top left open |
| Panel arrangement offered | Single louvred panel, mid-rail design, or a concertina run | Slatted or solid panels across the lower half |
| What has to swing clear on an escape window | Every panel over the opening | Every panel over the lower opening |
| Upkeep the seller claims | More surface to clean | Less surface to clean |
| Color and hinge choice | Identical published list | Identical published list |
| Guarantee published | Ten years | Ten years |
The part of the window that has to stay clear is the part both styles cover
Approved Document B, Volume 1 sets out what a window has to do when it is an emergency escape window. Paragraph 2.10 says that “Windows or external doors providing emergency escape should comply with all of the following”, then asks for “an unobstructed openable area that complies with all of the following”: a minimum area the guidance puts at 0.33 square meters, and “A minimum height of 450mm and a minimum width of 450mm (the route through the window may be at an angle rather than straight through)”.
Then comes the line that decides this comparison. “The bottom of the openable area is a maximum of 1100mm above the floor.” The opening a person is expected to climb through is in the lower part of the window, measured up from the floor. That is exactly the band a cafe style shutter covers, and it is also covered by a full height shutter. The open top half of a cafe style window is above the escape opening and does nothing for it.
Two more lines from the same paragraph matter at the ordering stage. “Windows should be capable of remaining open without being held”, and “Locks (with or without removable keys) and opening stays (with child-resistant release catches) may be fitted to escape windows”. So hardware is allowed, and the test is whether the opening stays clear once it is open.
Where a full height shutters vs cafe style shutters comparison actually turns
Read that way, the useful question is not how much glass each style hides. A full height shutters vs cafe style shutters comparison turns on whether the panels in front of the lower opening can be swung fully out of the way and left there. Both styles put something in front of that band, so both need panels that clear it.
The brand describes the full height style as “Covering the full length of windows for maximum coverage”, and its own frequently asked questions describe the construction: fitted “as either a single louvred panel that can open and close on one or two hinges like a door, or as a concertina-effect which works best on large window or door areas”. A product page elsewhere on Shutterly Fabulous adds that the choice is between “a single panel or mid-rail design”. Those are three different ways a panel moves, and they are the specification worth asking about on an escape window.
For the other style, the seller is just as plain: cafe style shutters “cover only the bottom section of your window, leaving the top section open”, and are “Available either slatted or with solid panels”. Same band, fewer panels.
What the sellers own compare page does and does not line up
The company publishes a page called Compare Our Shutters. It says the firm has “narrowed it down to our two favorite options” and then lines up two materials, hardwood against faux wood. It is a useful page. It is also not a comparison of styles, which is the decision a shopper arrives with.
The gap widens when you read the two style pages side by side. Both publish the same hardwood color list, the same hardwood hinge list, the same faux wood color list and the same faux wood hinge list. Finish, in other words, sorts nothing at all between the two styles. Both also carry the same ten year guarantee, and both offer the UK-made faux wood range “designed, made and fitted in as little as 2 weeks”.
Answering full height shutters or cafe style shutters which is better, room by room
Nothing in the guidance ranks the two styles, and asking full height shutters or cafe style shutters which is better only produces an answer once you say which window. The brand files cafe style as “Perfect for bathrooms, kitchens and street facing living rooms”, and full height as suited to “bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and even doors”. Those two lists overlap everywhere except the bedroom, and the bedroom is where the escape rule is most likely to apply.
A short way to work through it:
- Establish whether the window is an escape window for the room it serves, and if the answer is unclear, ask whoever carried out or signed off the building work.
- Measure up from the floor to the bottom of the opening part, because the guidance caps that at 1100mm.
- Ask how the panels in front of that band open, and whether they stay open without being held.
- Decide the style only after those three answers, then choose the material and the color, which the seller treats as the separate decision it is.
What a full height shutters vs cafe style shutters review usually leaves out
A full height shutters vs cafe style shutters review tends to be written as interiors copy, which is fair enough, because that is how the product is bought. Three things are easy to miss in it:
- The open top of a cafe style window is permanent. It is privacy at the bottom and daylight at the top, with no setting in between on that upper band.
- Upkeep is the seller’s own argument for the smaller style: half window shutters are “easier to maintain and clean than full height or tier on tier shutters”, because “they only cover half of the window”.
- Replacement work has its own clause. Paragraph 2.19 of the same guidance says that where an existing window would be an escape window in a new house, a replacement “should be sized to provide at least the same potential for escape”. Shutters are not windows, but the clause is a reminder that this part of a window is treated as a safety feature rather than as decoration.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Four questions come up repeatedly once the escape window point is on the table, and none of them has a style-based answer.
Ques: Do shutters have to meet a building rule?
The guidance quoted here is written about windows and building work, not about window coverings, so a shutter is not certified against it. What it does tell you is which part of the opening is expected to stay clear, which is information you can take into a design appointment.
Ques: Does a cafe style shutter leave the escape opening free?
Not by itself. The opening the guidance describes starts no more than 1100mm above the floor, and that is the band a cafe style panel sits across. The free top section is above it.
Ques: Is one style quicker to make than the other?
The brand publishes the same lead time for both when the UK-made faux wood range is chosen, with fitting quoted at as little as two weeks.
Ques: Can I match a shutter color to paint already on the wall?
A custom color service is offered on both styles, at an extra charge per color. The published color and hinge lists themselves are identical for the two styles.
The style and range pages are here:
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Bottom line
These two styles are not a light-and-privacy choice with a safety footnote. In a bedroom they are a choice about how panels move in front of the one band of window a building rule expects to stay clear, and the color, material and guarantee are the same either way.
