Hurricane windows are designed to protect the feature of your home that is the most vulnerable during a storm: your windows. The high winds of hurricanes hurl objects through the windows. This breaks the window and builds pressure up in the house that can break the rest of the windows and blow the roof off.



To prevent this from happening to your home, you need to take protective measures. Hurricane window protection can offer some of this protection. When choosing hurricane window protection, you need to think about how the product will be installed.

Will you need to hire a contractor, or is this a project that you can do? What is the cost involved in installing hurricane windows? Obviously, you can reduce that cost if you do the installation yourself. If you do not have hurricane windows, what are you going to do to protect your home? Can you quickly get ready for a storm if you have to hang shutters? If your windows are protected, you also have to think about protecting doors, including garage doors. There are different shutters for hurricane window protection. Accordion shutters, which come in one or two pieces, are permanently attached the the house, just outside of the windows. They do not have to be hung if a storm is approaching, you just have to fold them in over the windows. They are the easiest to use for one person, and can be locked. Bahama Shutters are attached to the house above the window. They also stay in place all the time and are propped open when not needed for protection. They provide shade from the sun when they are in this position. If a storm threatens, they are lowered and secured to the wall beneath the window. This is also an easy, one-man job.

Roll Down Shutters are rolled up in a box which is fixed to the wall above the window. When needed, you push a button to lower them, then they are locked in place. This is an expensive solution but offer the most protection of any shutter system. However, some peope do not like they way look on a house, and you have to make sure the motor is in good working order with a backup battery system. Having the system is useless if you cannot lower the shutters when you most need to, and if electricity is lost, as often happens in a storm, they will not work without batteries. Storm Panels are aluminum or steel panels that are attached to the outside of the window on tracks. These need to be put in place as a storm approaches. The panels slide into place in the tracks, overlapping one another. This a difficult system to operate alone. Windows made of hurrican glass are made of impact resistant glass. This is a new product that is being used more and more in new construction in hurricane zones. The windows are always in place, so no additional work is involved. They can also be installed in existing homes, but they can be expensive.

They must be installed professionally in order to make sure they will protect properly. These kinds of new hurricane windows do meet the proper codes in Florida for hurricane protection.