Flat Polycarbonate ShuttersWilmington, NC

Wilmington, New Hanover County

Flat polycarbonate in Wilmington, and the openings downtown that defeat every track

Flat polycarbonate shutters in Wilmington are $30/sq ft installed. Optically clear sheets are cut to the exact shape of the opening and mounted permanently on stainless standoffs with an air gap behind. The material carries the same ASTM E1886/E1996 rating as every rigid system we fit, and the permit and design pressure calculation are in the rate.

Wilmington has an older and more architecturally ambitious housing stock than anywhere else we work, and that creates a specific problem. The downtown historic blocks are full of semicircular fanlights over front doors, narrow sidelights flanking them, arched heads, and tall fixed windows that were never designed to open. Accordions, roll-downs and panels all want a rectangle with a track above and below. None of these openings is a rectangle.

Flat polycarbonate is cut to whatever shape the opening actually is, which makes it the only rated product that covers them. On a typical downtown quote there are three or four such openings, and they are frequently the largest and most exposed glass on the front of the house — the ones that get skipped every single storm because nothing standard fits them.

There is a local advantage worth naming. Our shop is on Castle Hayne Road, in Wilmington. Elsewhere on the coast an irregular shape means a special order; here it means we measure it and cut it, and the turnaround is a matter of days rather than a wait. Bespoke shapes stop being expensive exceptions when the fabrication happens in the same city as the house.

Because the sheet is clear, the room behind it keeps full daylight and the window still reads as a window from the sidewalk. On a historic elevation, where a visible housing or head box would be the first thing anyone notices, that is usually the difference between a product you can put on the front of the house and one you cannot.