It’s easy to overlook hurricane preparedness when you haven’t experienced a hurricane in several years. But, if you live in an area prone to hurricane activity, you already know the devastating injuries and property damage a major hurricane can leave in its wake. It’s important to take the necessary steps and a reasonable amount of time to prepare your home and family before a storm strike. Many homeowners neglect the seriousness of properly securing their home for a major storm, or else they do so hastily when a storm is zeroing in.
Some home and business owners consider plywood an adequate material for preparing their home for a hurricane. They inaccurately assume that as long as their windows are covered, they’ll be protected during a storm. However, plywood has many drawbacks. First of all, plywood is not truly impact resistant. During a hurricane, objects and debris can be thrown around by the forceful storm winds at over one hundred miles an hour. Plywood tends to absorb moisture and can soften and weaken over time. Plywood isn’t actually a solid piece of wood. It is made of many smaller pieces pressed together giving it a porous surface. This porosity can cause plywood to act as a sponge when it comes to water absorption. The porous surface allows the wood to be flexible which might be useful for construction purposes because it allows walls to have some flex to them, but during a hurricane, porous wet wood panels is the last thing you want protecting your glass windows.
When exposed to water, plywood loses its structural integrity and never fully returns to its original state once it dries. That’s why most plywood ends up in the landfill after a storm. Another downfall of plywood is that it can chip, splinter and peel. It’s also heavy and cumbersome to handle. When not in use and being stored outside or in a humid garage, it can attract termites and grow mildew and mold. Once that happens, the plywood should be rendered useless as a means of storm protection for windows and you’ll need to call an exterminator to manage the termites. Additionally, If you choose plywood for your windows, you will probably need to buy it every year which can get costly and very time-consuming when you consider your time spent standing in long lines at the hardware store waiting to purchase plywood.
The safest and most cost and time effective solution for storm protection for your home or commercial property is to invest in durable factory direct hurricane shutters from www.hurricaneshuttersflorida.com, a leading manufacturer and online seller of quality hurricane shutters and storm protection products. At Hurricane Shutters Florida, there are many different buying options when it comes to impact hurricane shutters. Hurricane Shutters Florida manufactures and ships many of its quality hurricane shutters all over the world, including rolling shutters, Bahama shutters, aluminum shutters, storm panels, and colonial shutters
The convenience of buying factory direct hurricane shutters online means that one-time purchase will protect your home indefinitely. Our hurricane shutters are built in accordance with the Miami-Dade County product control division, Florida Building Code, and the International Building Code and can withstand highspeed projectiles aimed at your windows. Our Storm Shutters are also designed without a flat surface area to help disperse the impact at the point of contact.
Plywood is flat and when something hits it at highspeed, all of that impact force is directed at the initial point of contact. This means smaller items traveling at a high velocity can be more damaging to plywood than a bigger item projecting blunt force. A large surface area can more evenly distribute impact force, but a smaller surface absorbs all the force into a much more concentrated contact point, weakening its structure. Once there is a weakening or break in the plywood, air rushes in and can pull the board right off your home and leave your windows and interior exposed and vulnerable to the elements outside.
If you have been thinking, “Do I really need hurricane shutters on my home?” The answer is always YES! YES! and YES! Your home is one of the biggest investments in your lifetime. Call us today at 954-474-3557 and 888-474-3555 for a free quote. Don’t wait until it’s too late!
