Storm Panels in Punta Gorda, FL
Cheapest rated protection you can buy, and the product with the most specific
failure mode. In this town that failure mode is the calendar.
The calendar problem
Hurricane season runs June to November. Punta Gorda’s seasonal population is largely gone from
about April to about October. Those two facts overlap almost perfectly, and
panels are the one product that cannot cope with it.
There are only two things to do with a seasonal house and a set of panels:
- Leave them off — and the house is unprotected for the entire season with
nobody here to change that. - Put them up in April — and the house is a sealed dark box for six months,
which is hard on the property and impossible if you rent it.
If you are here year-round, none of that applies and panels are excellent value. If you are not,
be honest about which of those two you would actually do.
Where they work well here
Year-round residents on single-storey houses, which describes a good deal of the town away from
the water. Outbuildings, workshops and pool baths. And staged protection on a house being brought
up to standard over a couple of seasons.
A specification we write often: panels on the side and rear windows nobody uses, and something
that closes itself on the openings that matter.
Steel or clear
Steel is the default and the strongest per dollar. Clear Lexan
polycarbonate costs more and lets daylight through — the difference between three
days in a dark house and three days in a normal one. Aluminum exists and is occasionally painted to
match, but buys less strength for more money and is rarely specified.
Check the hardware in June
Panels are almost impossible to damage. The tracks, studs and wingnuts they bolt to sit outside
all year, and this close to the harbour they corrode. The failure people actually experience is a
seized wingnut on the afternoon a warning goes up. Test-fit a few every June — a five-minute
job then, an impossible one in September.
Permitting runs through the City of Punta Gorda’s own building department and is handled as part
of the job.
Talk to us about storm panels in Punta Gorda
Tell us what you are looking at and someone from our team will call you the same business day. We go through it on the phone first — your openings, the products that actually fit, what is involved — and if it is a fit we come out and put a written quote in your hand. No charge and no obligation.
Questions we get asked
I am only here in winter. Are panels a bad idea?
They are a poor fit for that pattern. Hurricane season falls almost entirely inside the months you are away, so you either leave the house unprotected or shutter it dark for six months. Something that closes on its own solves what panels cannot.
Are they proper protection?
Completely. Rated, permitted panels are opening protection and count on a wind mitigation form like anything else. The only question is whether they get put up.
Steel or the clear ones?
Steel on bedrooms and side windows, clear Lexan on the rooms you would be sitting in. A mix is normal and it is what we usually write.
More questions? Our full hurricane shutter & screen FAQ covers products, service, permitting and financing.
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Florida Screen & Shutter, LLC · 883 NE 27th Ln #5, Cape Coral, FL 33909 · (239) 409-0426
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