Hurricane Storm Panels
Storm panels are the most cost effective products to protect your home. An entire home can be secured by one individual. Panels can be made of steel, aluminum or a clear polycarbonate. All are effective in defending your home from the devastation that a hurricane can cause. Aluminum panels are significantly lighter in weight than the steel panels which make them easier to manage and install.
Aluminum storm panels offer an inexpensive lightweight solution to protecting your home. We carry .050 inch and 0.60 inch aluminum panels. Aluminum panels are lighter and stronger than plywood and are much easier to install. If you are looking for a more economical option to protect your home steel panels may be your solution however, steel panels do have a disadvantage.
Steel panels are heavier than aluminum panels but still easier than plywood to install. While aluminum is measured in decimals of an inch and increases in size with an increase in the decimal, steel is measured in gauges and the lower the gauge the thicker the metal. We offer 20 gauge and 24 gauge steel panels. Many builders use 28 gauge panels because it is the cheapest gauge that will pass the Florida Building Code. We do not recommend 28 gauge panels as we feel it gives homeowners a false sense of security. When consulting a prospective client on which shutters to use for their home, we consider their home as our own and recommend protection as if our family will be behind the shutters that we are about to install.
Clear panels offer the added feature of allowing light to enter your home. Clear panels can be left up on some fixed openings throughout the season allowing home owners to escape the chore of installing and removing their panels a number of times due to the threat of multiple storms. Allowing light to enter a room also has psychological advantages for some residents such as easing anxiety associated with claustrophobia and cabin fever. Clear panels can be combined with aluminum or steel panels as an economical way to allow light into your home without incurring the full expense of covering your entire house in clear panels. Another benefit to mixing clear with aluminum is strength. Clear panels are made of a polycarbonate called Lexan which is a material that is more flexible than aluminum or steel. A window fully covered with Lexan, if not installed far enough away from the glass, can be broken as a result of the panels flexing and shattering the window in a heavy impact. It is best to use one or two clear panels along with metal panels to have the added benefit of allowing light to enter while maintaining strength. Corrugated clear panels are ridged and are designed to allow light to enter, however visibility is poor. Another clear panel we offer uses a ¼ inch thick flat clear polycarbonate between two .070 aluminum extrusions which results in increased visibility, strength and provides adequate distance between the polycarbonate and the window pane.
Mounting
There are two main methods for mounting panels to a home:
Direct mount: The direct mount method uses either panel-mates (a tapcon with a threaded stud as the head) and wing nuts or lead anchors and sidewalk bolts to secure the panel directly to the wall of your home.
Track mount: The track mounting method uses various tracks to offer the homeowner a simpler method of securing their home with panels. The top tracks are designed to hold the top of the panels in place by sliding into a channel and the bottom of the panel is then fastened to a studded lower track using wing nuts. This method minimizes the use of ladders and only requires fastening on one side of the panel which reduces the amount of time it takes to secure your home. We carry various tracks to handle almost any application even arched tracks to go around decorative arched windows.
