Herschel PACS imaging observations of carbon stars show well-resolved spherically symmetric detached shells around several objects. In the case of U Hya the shell is additionally detected in scattered visible light and in the far UV. The remarkable spherical symmetry justifies a straightforward application of 1D models to constrain the properties of the dust envelope, whose modulation in density is a consequence of short epochs of highly increased mass loss and/or wind-wind interaction between outflows of different velocity. We perform dust radiative transfer calculations, first based on a parametrised density distribution, and in a more sophisticated approach on a combination of stationary wind models. The impact of dust properties, particularly grain geometry, on the results is highlighted.