Hurricane Windows vs Shutters

[Psychoma]

Asking in the Florida message board may provide some additional insight/experience as well. I no longer live near the coast so can't speak from experience but from what I've seen others say the type of window protection you go with may potentially impact your insurance cost, an ability to safely let light in / see out would be a huge advantage, above post already mentioned potential HOA's, building codes, etc in what's allowed / required, and where 3rd parties put up your window protection (shutters, plywood, etc.) you sometimes run the risk of them not being able to install in time prior to a storms arrival (I've seen this for parts of FL but may / may not be an issue in MB region though).

In addition to the great info Heading_Home has provided, I would also recommend checking out the US National Hurricane Center's surge maps, which can differ from FEMA's. Be sure to change the category from 1 to 5 for different water heights (typically higher the higher category storm), but note no Cat5 has hit the US East coast from Miami northward, we have had Cat4's into the SC coast but its pretty rare (Hugo 1989 was last SC Cat4), map is considered accurate down to 'neighborhood' level as specific things done to the lot/house may affect water heights there, maps do NOT account for rain flooding or river draining downstream flooding after a storm. This does NOT mean a Cat1 or 2, etc will flood as shown, this just represents the near worst case scenario for the specific neighborhood general area you are looking at for that category, so shows what's possible given the right conditions at that point. When a storm threatens the coast and Watch/Warnings are issued then surge maps specific to that storm will be released by the NHC. https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Ma...935fad&entry=1

[blueherons]

I have impact windows on my condo here so I can't help you with that however the twelve years I lived oceanfront on Garden City Beach, we just put up plyboard.

If you go this route, make sure you mark the boards (kids room, master bedroom, upstairs study, etc).

As far as being in a flood zone or 100 year flood zone, your home must be 17 feet above sea level so that is how we built our last two homes. We also had impact windows.

[Ninny899]

Yeah Blue, that kills me. You see video of people running to HD to buy plywood. Well what did you do with the stuff you bought last hurricane? Lol

[beer belly]

Put a nice Mural on the Plywood facing inside the room

[Hamiltonjoe1950]

Originally Posted by e66330

Our builder left us the precut OSB and a pile of screws . He said most people toss all of that in the trash . We have not done that . We will save it for a while or find something to do with it .

I found that the first time I wanted to put them up that none were cut to fit the windows, some were too small and to be honest I felt the wood was too thin. (They didn’t give me screws with ours but that was no big deal). I also didn’t want to be putting the screws into the vinyl siding.

Ultimately, I took them to the recycle center and gave them to a man that was there.

[SPARKY12]

We have the old fashioned metal shutters we've put them up twice and they do let light into the house. We live in a neighborhood with 110 homes and only 3 of us put up shutters so that ought to tell you something. We've only been here 3 years.

[Hamiltonjoe1950]

6 years here and never had a problem...bough the polycarbonate panels and used them once so far. Several in our neighborhood actually board up. But the ones we got are relatively light and no sharp edges.