Hurricane ScreensOak Island, NC

Oak Island, Brunswick County

Why a porch needs screens rather than shutters, and what that costs on Oak Island

Hurricane screens on Oak Island are $48/sq ft installed, with motorization adding $700 per opening. They solve a problem rigid shutters cannot: a twenty or thirty-foot porch opening has nowhere to put a track without a post through the middle, and a post through the middle ruins the room you were protecting.

StormTex aramid screens span the full width with nothing in the center. Because the fabric is woven rather than solid, the view survives deployment — you can still see the water through a screen that is doing its job, which matters when the whole reason for the porch is what you look at from it.

Porches and covered decks are the standard layout here, on the oceanfront and on the canal side off Yacht Drive. Most owners who buy screens for storm protection end up running them far more often for sun and insects from May to October. On an island where the porch is the main living space for half the year, that daily use is the larger part of the value.