Hurricane Storm PanelsHampstead, NC

Hampstead, Pender County

Storm panels in Hampstead, and why the clear ones are worth the difference here

Aluminum storm panels in Hampstead are $22/sq ft installed. Clear polycarbonate panels are $26/sq ft. Both carry the same ASTM E1886/E1996 rating as accordions, roll-downs and rated Bahamas, and both count identically toward a wind mitigation credit. The certification is the same; what differs is how much work you do and how much light you keep.

Panels suit Hampstead better than they suit anywhere else we work, and the reason is the thing that defines this town: people are home. The owner is a full-time resident with a garage, a truck and a weekend, which is exactly the profile the product was designed for and exactly the profile it fails without. On a barrier island rental we generally talk people out of panels. Here we do not.

What we do push, harder here than elsewhere, is the clear option. Four dollars a square foot sounds like an upsell until you think about what the next three days actually look like: you are behind these panels, not away from them, with the power out and nothing to do. Aluminum makes every covered room pitch dark at two in the afternoon. Clear polycarbonate keeps the rooms daylit and lets you see the weather you are sitting in.

The labor is real and we will not undersell it. Panels are carried out, lifted into the tracks and fastened before each storm, then taken down, cleaned and stacked afterward. A full house is most of a day and usually two people. The tracks stay up year-round; only the panels come and go.