Get Ready For Hurricane Season With A Few Vital Improvements
Is your home ready for hurricane season? There are quite a few home improvement techniques from the quick and sloppy to the structured and strong, but you need to know what works and what doesn't. If you're not used to hurricane weather, know that although nature is powerful and can tear down anything, you have many opportunities at your disposal to be safe from most threats--and to make sure that insurance handles the rest. Here are a few hurricane protection improvement points, along with a few myths that don't work.
Bad Advice From Hurricane Protection Myths
Some pieces of advice may sound good only because they come from a time where it was hard to prove otherwise. In only 2 decades, the world changed drastically with a wealth of information, the ability to test easier, and the ability to share that testing accurately. There's no need to believe guesses and hunches.
One myth that continues from the informed age is the idea of putting tape on windows to protect against hurricane impact. Not only is this myth wrong, but it even has a few spun-off guesses that don't fit the myth's intention.
As the myth goes, putting tape on windows is supposed to keep the glass together as a less dangerous shattering point. The further, wrong assumption of the myth is that tape will somehow stop projectiles from getting through.
The first thing to understand is that standard tape does nothing. Projectiles sent faster than a child throwing a baseball--let alone tens or over a hundred mile per hour winds--will go through the window and tear most tape. There is a specific kind of hurricane tape that can work, but it should only be used in an emergency when no other options are available.
Using tape on standard windows will only turn your glass into a flying medieval weapon like a flail or lethal whips of glass an adhesive. The glass may be arguably more slow, but the mass from large shards of glass held together by tape will do more damage than smaller pieces with less mass.
Boarding windows is half myth caused by losing the specifics of the technique. Yes, you can protect your windows by nailing boards across the window, but you can't use random wood types or simple ply board. Every type of wood has a different breaking point, and the quality of the wood matters.
Put off learning how to inspect different wood types and their protective potential until after you update your windows.
Hurricane-Resistant Windows And Shutter Improvements
Before anything else, change your windows and document it on your homeowner's insurance--or renter's insurance, if you have permission to make changes.
Hurricane-resistant windows have a few specific properties to help you in a natural disaster. These windows have multiple layers of glass and film that can resist the impact of projectiles. Remember the tape myth? With a lot of hurricane tape and expert training, you could create a protective barrier. Hurricane windows with film layering are cheaper in the long run when you calculate the insurance savings and ability to replace the windows after an insurance inspection.
Install impact-resistant shutters as well. These are better than basic wooden shutters, since they're designed to not simply split when common projectiles hit, and are anchored into the home. Contact a replacement windows and home improvement professional to discuss other technology that can protect your home and lower your insurance costs.
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