Hurricane shutters: testing them before you need them

Deploy them fully, all of them, before the season rather than looking at them. A visual inspection tells you almost nothing, because the failures on shutters are seized tracks, corroded fasteners and missing parts, and none of those declare themselves until something has to move.

Do it on a calm day when there is time to order what the test finds.

What a full test actually involves

Close every shutter completely and secure it as it would be secured in a storm. Then open it again. Both directions matter: a shutter that closes and then jams open a business for a week is its own problem.

Count the panels and the fasteners against the openings. Operate every lock, every wing nut and every pin. On roll-down shutters run each one through its full travel and listen. On accordion shutters run them right along the track and engage the center lock.

Note the time it takes with the people you would actually have available. That number is the most useful output of the whole exercise and almost nobody has it.

Corrosion is the coastal failure

Salt air works on fasteners continuously. Bolts, wing nuts, anchors, tracks and hinges corrode until they seize or shear, and it happens invisibly inside a track or behind a panel.

Anything that will not turn by hand needs attention now rather than in an emergency. Replace corroded fasteners rather than freeing them, because a fixing that has corroded once has lost section and will not hold what it is meant to hold.

Check anchors into the wall as well as the shutter hardware. An anchor pulling out of stucco or block is the failure that matters most and the one people look at least.

Tracks and moving parts

Tracks fill with grit, sand, packaging debris and, remarkably often, paint. A shutter that has been painted over in an exterior redecoration will not run, and nobody discovers it until the season.

Clean tracks out fully rather than lubricating over the top of the debris. Where a roll-down shutter is stiff, noisy or stops partway, treat it as a fault rather than a quirk. Our article on a roller shutter or gate that is stuck covers what is usually behind that.

The storage problem

Removable panels are the ones that go wrong, and it is rarely the panels themselves.

They get stored somewhere that later becomes stock storage. They get stacked unlabeled, so nobody knows which panel belongs to which opening. They get separated from their fasteners. They end up behind a locked door whose key is with somebody who has left.

Label every panel to its opening, permanently and legibly. Keep the fasteners with the panels in a labeled container. Store them where they can be reached without moving anything else, and make sure more than one person knows where that is and can get in.

The deployment plan, written down

Who deploys them, in what order, and how long it takes. Which openings are prioritized if there is not time for all of them. Who has keys and access. What happens if it falls on a weekend or a holiday.

Openings on escape routes need thinking about specifically, because a shuttered exit is a life safety problem for as long as anybody is inside. Decide that in advance rather than on the day.

Our article on the commercial hurricane preparation checklist covers the wider list this sits inside.

Where the test finds something that cannot be corrected before the season, decide the fallback now rather than during a watch. Boarding an opening is a legitimate answer and it needs material, fasteners and somebody available, none of which can be obtained once a storm is named. Our article on what a proper board-up involves covers doing it so it actually holds.

Who carries this out

Tracks, guides, panels, fasteners, anchors, locks, hinges, manual gear, cleaning and adjustment are performed directly by our own technicians, and none of it requires a Florida contractor license.

Powered shutters are split: the mechanical side is ours and anything on the motor supply or control circuit is electrical, coordinated through licensed contractors. Replacing a shutter system on an exterior opening normally needs a permit and a product approval submittal, which makes it licensed work whatever the trade. Our article on impact glazing and the NOA covers that process.

Afterward

Record the test: date, which openings, what failed, what was corrected. That record is worth having for an insurer, and it is what makes next year's test a comparison rather than a fresh discovery.

Once a storm has passed, our article on the first 48 hours covers the order the recovery goes in.