The easiest and most cost effective method of putting up hurricane shutters is to buy some plywood sheets or hurricane panels and hang them over your windows or doors, as you can see in the picture below. The advantages of doing this are the low cost, and the fact that it can be done rather quickly, which is handy if you get caught unaware by an oncoming storm. The disadvantages of it are pretty obvious: you have to manually put up and take down the covers for every storm, and they aren’t going to last very long, so you’ll be buying more panels probably at least every year. This method works well if you have a garden building in the backyard. You probably won’t be able to find fitted shutters to protect a shed or garden building, so just go with some plywood planks.

Photo by Bob B. Brown

Among the more permanent solutions for hurricane shutters are roller shutters, Bahama shutters, Colonial shutters and accordion shutters. Roller shutters generally provide some of the best protection for your home, but they also look kinda bad when you’re not using them. The shutter is stored in a big box that is installed above your door or windows, and then rolls down out of the box over the window when you need it. The box is pretty much permanent and doesn’t do much to add to the decor of your home.

Bahama and Colonial shutters are other hurricane shutter options that can actually look nice when they are not being used. Both of these shutters feature a panel that swings shut to cover the window when needed, and can act much like a normal shutter when not needed. Colonial shutters are attached to the side of the window and swing side-to-side, while Bahama shutters (pictured below) are attached above the window and swing down to cover it. Both of these shutters can also serve to block sunlight from coming into the window, as well as their primary function, making them useful in more than one way.

Photo by colemama

Lastly, accordion shutters are another hurricane shutters option. These shutters act much like vertical blinds and gather at one side of the window or door on a railing that extends above the window. When you need to use them, you simply pull them out and across the window and put them back when you don’t need them.