Exterior shutters are the newest trend in home design. Over the past decade, more and more home owners are buying and installing such shutters at their windows, claiming that they also provide a good level of security for the house. They are somehow right. While the fancy plantation shutters offer only elegance and privacy to your rooms, exterior shutters also keep thieves outside your home. In order for this to be effective, you have to take care to always shut them completely when you leave home. Otherwise, they can be easily damaged with some crowbar, so you can kiss your protection good bye.

Exterior Shutters Types

The most common and oldest type of exterior shutters are the ones that glide towards sides on screws or shutter spikes. Such shutters can be hollow or solid and they can be made of wood or composite materials, fiberglass, aluminum or polymer vinyl. While for so many years wood was the only material used for window shutters, it got rotten with time and heavy rains, and needed either re-pain or total replacement every couple of years, modern exterior shutters can last for a lifetime, because these new materials are very resistant to bad weather conditions.

The hardware is very important at this type of shutters, because it needs to be very strong, while being elegant in the same time. The hand-forged shutter hardware is very appreciated in this respect, because it has all these qualities. When finished in the traditional matte-black finish, this hardware can give a vintage look to a modern house. If your windows are standard size, you can buy ready-made exterior shutters from Home Depot or other home and garden stores.

This type of shutters offers some protection and security, but they can be broken if thieves insist a bit more.

The modern type of window coverings are the exterior roller shutters, which roll in a special case placed at the upper edge of the window. Rolling shutters are very efficient in blocking the wind pressure and any airborne debris which can hit your windows during hurricanes. They also offer a good security protection, being quite hard to break when rolled all the way down.

Exterior roller shutters offer a good control over the sun and light, being also known as good insulators, thus helping you save money on your electricity bills, both in winter and in summer, when you need to use the air conditioned a lot.

These exterior shutters can be operated manually, with the help of a special chord and a crank, or electrically, with a small motor encapsulated inside.

I’ve got this question from a reader: how safe are electric roller blinds for bathrooms? He was concerned with the fact that hot showers help maintaining a high humidity level in the bathroom, therefore the electric blinds could either break very often or put his life in danger.

I don’t know what to say. It depends very much of the window blinds quality. If the motor is properly sealed in its case, then the blinds shouldn’t be dangerous. However, in case steam enters in the motor case, in time it may provoke damages or even short circuits which could start a fire. Most of serious window treatments manufacturers, however, have their blinds motors encapsulated either in the roller tube or within the head rail, as in the case of venetian blinds.

As far as I’m aware, electric blinds are battery-operated. This means the electricity has a low voltage, therefore human life is not at risk, even if you install your blinds in the bathroom. Malfunctions can occur, especially if your blinds get in direct contact with water, so if your window is very close to the shower, you may want to give up automation and go for the old manual way.

The remote control could be sensitive to water and hot steam, so keeping it in the bathroom for a long time may lead to permanent damage. I’ve heard that there are companies which offer waterproof remotes for window blinds, so in case you insist to have such coverings for your bathroom windows, buy one of those remotes and enjoy taking long baths while playing with your electric roller blinds up and down. Or maybe not.