Best RV Blackout Curtains and Shades

The factory day and night shades that came with most travel trailers were never meant to fully darken a room. They cut glare and give privacy, but a well-lit RV park at night or a sunrise through a thin window will still get through. RV blackout curtains are the fix, and the fabric matters less than most people expect.

What actually blocks the light: the fabric, or the fit?

Both, but the fit is where most blackout curtains fail in an RV specifically. An RV window has almost no overhang, unlike a house window with trim and a deep sill. A curtain sized for a living room window leaves a strip of light down both edges and along the bottom, because there’s nothing for the fabric to seal against.

The practical fix is a couple of inches of Velcro at the outer edges of the curtain, closing the gap where the fabric would otherwise hang loose past the window frame. It’s a small addition, and it’s the difference between a curtain that reads as dark in the store and one that actually darkens the room at 6 a.m. in a campground.

Do RV blackout curtains cause condensation or mold?

They can, if a window gets sealed too tightly in cold weather with the heater running. A blackout curtain pulled flush against cold glass traps humid cabin air right at the coldest surface in the room, which is exactly where condensation forms first. The workaround isn’t to give up on blackout curtains. It’s to leave the bottom edge or the shade behind it cracked open an inch or two on cold nights, so air keeps moving across the glass instead of sitting still against it.

That’s the same principle behind the EPA’s general guidance on moisture and mold, written for homes rather than RVs specifically: increasing ventilation and air movement is one of the primary ways to prevent condensation in any enclosed space.

Mildew shows up first as small dark spots that look like dirt more than fabric damage, usually near the bottom hem where moisture collects. Wiping down the window track and letting the curtain fully dry before it’s left closed for days cuts most of that risk before it starts.

Curtains or shades, which actually works better in an RV?

Factory day and night shades are convenient and they roll flat, but they’re not built to fully darken a room, which is the whole point of a blackout curtain in the first place. A blackout curtain hung over or in addition to the factory shade gets you both: the shade for daytime privacy and airflow control, the curtain for the nights you actually need it dark.

What to look for

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Whatever curtain gets picked, measure the actual window opening first, not the trim around it. RV windows run smaller than the equivalent house window size names would suggest, and a curtain bought a size too large is what ends up needing the Velcro fix in the first place.

What can you put on the window instead of curtains?

Curtains are not the only answer, and on some windows they are the wrong one. A short window over a dinette has nowhere to hang a rod, and nobody wants fabric flapping against the glass down the whole side of the rig at highway speed.

Window film. This is the option people talk themselves out of, usually because somebody told them film cannot go on double pane glass. Gila answers that directly in its own window film FAQ: all of its films can be applied to dual pane windows if used correctly, and only two products in the range, Glare Control Smoke and Privacy Control Black, have to go on the outside instead of the inside. That is an instruction about which side to use, not a ban.

Film is also the only option in this article that publishes a number you can compare. Automotive film is sold by visible light transmission, so a 5 percent film passes 5 percent of the light and stops the rest. Nothing sold as an RV shade is labeled that way.

Static cling film is the version worth knowing about for a rig you do not own outright, or a window you might change your mind about. It uses no adhesive and comes off by hand.

One caution that comes from the film industry rather than from us. 3M’s own sun control film warranty covers thermal shock breakage on glass the film has been properly applied to, up to a stated value per window. A manufacturer does not warranty against a risk that does not exist. Dark film absorbs heat, and Gila says as much, noting that filmed glass feels warmest on clear sunny days.

Reflective bubble panels cut to fit the opening are the cheap standby, and they do block light completely. Be aware of what is not published: Reflectix gives R-values for attics, crawl spaces and ductwork on its performance page and gives none for windows, and we found no guidance from them at all about using the material against glass. The panels work. The performance claims people repeat about them in windows are not coming from the manufacturer.

Why will the factory shades not stay up?

This is the most common complaint about RV window coverings and it has an actual fix, which almost nothing written on the subject mentions.

The pleated day and night shades fitted at the factory are not held by a cord lock like a house blind. On the MCD American Series, which is what a lot of rigs carry, the shade runs on spring tension, and the owner manual publishes the adjustment. A shade that creeps down, or that rises too slowly to stay where you put it, is a tension setting rather than a broken part.

1. Find the black speed adjuster on the shade assembly. It is at the end of the roller, behind the valance.
2. Push the adjuster in with a flat blade screwdriver before you turn it. Turning it without pushing it in does nothing.
3. Turn it clockwise to increase spring tension and ascent speed.
4. Test the shade at half height between adjustments rather than running it to the top each time.

Do not keep going once it holds. The manual warns that over tensioning makes the shade stick at its upper limit, which trades one annoying problem for a worse one.

Worth knowing before you buy anything: MCD calls the mesh one a day shade and the vinyl or Teflon treated one a night shade, and only the second is meant to black out. A rig with both fitted already has a blackout layer, and the fix may be tension rather than a purchase.

How do you block the light temporarily?

Rentals, borrowed rigs and one bad campsite all call for something that comes off again without a mark. Two things work.

Static cling film goes on with water and no adhesive, and peels off by hand. It is the only reversible option that darkens the glass itself rather than covering it.

Fabric covers that attach with hook and loop tape are the other, and they are the only product in this category that sits against the frame rather than inside it, which is what gets at the edges. Read what the sellers claim carefully though. Blackout EZ says its RV covers block out all light, and publishes no measurement behind that.

What we would not do temporarily is drill anything. A rental that needs a rod is a rental that needs a bedsheet and two clamps for a week.

Why does light still get in at the edges?

Because a shade is narrower than the hole it covers, and the light does not care about the middle. The gap runs down both sides, along the bottom, and across the top behind the valance, and on a sunny morning that thin outline is bright enough to wake somebody who sleeps light.

Fabric weight does nothing for this. A heavier curtain blocks more light through the panel and exactly the same amount around it. What closes the gap is coverage that goes past the opening: a cover that mounts to the wall rather than inside the frame, a curtain wider than the window with a return at each end, or film on the glass itself, which is the only one of the three with no edge at all.

Nobody publishes a number on this. We looked for one from MCD, Lippert, Carefree and Blackout EZ, and none of them quantifies edge leakage or what a valance or a side channel recovers. The only percentages we found came from a company selling side channels, which is not a source we will quote.

Light and heat are two different jobs

People shop for one and expect the other. They are measured separately, and film is the product category honest enough to publish both.

Gila lists solar energy rejection and visible light transmission as different specifications, and its Privacy Control Mirror film claims to reject up to 79 percent of total solar energy while its automotive films are sold by how much light they pass. A film can stop most of the heat and still let you see out, and a curtain can black out a window completely and do very little about the temperature, because the sun has already hit the glass by the time the fabric gets involved.

If the problem is a bedroom that is 95 degrees at four in the afternoon, the answer is on the outside of the glass or in the glass. If the problem is a streetlight at two in the morning, the answer is on the inside and cheap.

What nobody publishes

Every shade in this category is sold on a phrase rather than a figure. MCD describes its night shades as 100 percent privacy and blackout material. Blackout EZ says all light. Neither publishes a light transmission percentage, and neither cites a test.

We checked the manufacturers’ own documents for this article: MCD’s American Series owner manual and product pages, Lippert’s window and shade pages, Reflectix’s performance information, Gila’s window film FAQ and product specs, 3M’s sun control film warranty, and Blackout EZ’s product page. The only measured light figures in the whole set come from window film, because automotive film has to be labeled that way for legal reasons.

That does not make the shades bad. It means the words on the package are the manufacturer’s opinion of the product, and the only way to compare two of them is to hang them up. Buy the one you can return.

What it comes down to

A blackout curtain works when it seals the edges, not just when the fabric itself is dark. Add a small strip of Velcro at the sides where light leaks through, and crack a shade or curtain slightly on cold nights so the window can still breathe. That’s the whole difference between a curtain that looks like it should work and one that actually does.

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