I was dissuaded from several blinds sellers from ever getting an air conditioner "cut out" on a new set of blinds. "Nightmare" was a word that came up more than once. A helpful man at Window Flair Inc told me about these panels, and it sounded like a good idea to me. Otherwise my blinds are open 18" when the AC is installed on the far side of my wide window unit. It took me quite some time to actually even open the box (I've been re-doing the entire house for some months now), but it went in super quick and looks great.