Southport, North Carolina

Hurricane ScreensSouthport, NC

$48/sq ft installed, with motorization adding $700 per opening. Bought for the storm, used for the other nine months — which in a town where the porch is the main room is most of what you are paying for.

$48/sq ft

Installed Price

+$700/opening

Motorized

Southport NC

Location

StormTex Aramid

Fabric

ASTM E1886/E1996

Rated To

Southport, Brunswick County

What hurricane screens cost in Southport, and the room they are really protecting

Hurricane screens in Southport are $48/sq ft installed, and motorizing an opening adds $700. The fabric is StormTex aramid, rated to ASTM E1886/E1996 — the same standard as every rigid system we fit, because a rating describes a test, not a hurricane category.

The reason they exist is span. A covered porch twenty or thirty feet across cannot take an accordion or a roll-down without a post dropped through the middle to carry the track, and a post through the middle is the end of the porch as a room. A screen spans the full width with nothing in between, and because the weave is open rather than solid you keep the light and most of the view while it is down.

What Southport owners actually do with them is the other argument. Between the marsh edges, the creeks and a long warm season, insects are a daily problem here and the sun on a west-facing porch is worse. Most people who buy a screen for hurricane season end up running it from spring through fall, which is a different value proposition from a shutter that sits in a housing for eleven months.

On an older house the screen has a second advantage worth naming: it lives in a head box above the porch opening rather than on the face of the building, so the elevation itself is untouched. Nothing is bolted across the front of the house.

Product	StormTex aramid hurricane screen
Installed price	$48 per square foot
Motorization	Add $700 per opening
Location	Southport, NC (Brunswick County)
Span	Full porch width, no post required
Daily use	Sun and insect screening spring through fall
Rating	ASTM E1886/E1996
Not for	Direct mounting against window glass

The porch is the house

Southport lives outdoors under its live oaks from March to November, and the covered porch is where that happens. It is also the largest unprotected opening on most houses in town, and the one no rigid shutter covers without wrecking the room. That is the gap this product fills.

When hurricane screens are the wrong choice in Southport

They solve one problem extremely well and several others badly.

Directly against a window

Screens protect openings, not panes. They belong across a porch, lanai or covered deck. For the windows themselves you want a rigid system — panels at $22, accordions at $38 or Bahamas at $60.

Small standard windows

At $48/sq ft the math stops working on a normal bedroom window. Aluminum panels at $22 or accordions at $38 protect that opening for a fraction of the cost and do it better.

An owner who is away

A manual screen still needs a person on site to deploy it. If the house sits empty in September, either motorize the opening at $700 or look at something permanently mounted instead.

Questions we get in Southport

How much do hurricane screens cost in Southport?

$48 per square foot installed, plus $700 per opening if you want it motorized. The permit and the design pressure analysis are included in the rate.

Can they cover a whole porch without a post?

Yes — that is the reason to choose them. A twenty or thirty-foot span goes across in one screen with nothing in the middle, which no accordion or roll-down can do without structure down the center.

Do I still get the view and the light?

Largely. The fabric is woven rather than solid, so a deployed screen dims the porch rather than blacking it out and you can see through it. It is the main reason people leave them down in summer.

What are they rated to?

ASTM E1886/E1996, the same impact and pressure standard as our rigid shutters. Anyone quoting you a hurricane category is describing a storm, not a product.

Do they work as insect screening?

That is what most Southport owners use them for most of the year. Between the marsh and the creeks the bugs are a daily problem here, and the storm performance is the part you hope never to test.

Why Southport homeowners call AHS

Founded in 2006 by Michael Burns. We fabricate and install ourselves — no subcontractors on your house.

OSHA-30 Certified

The only OSHA-30 certified hurricane shutter company in coastal NC and SC.

Design Pressure Analysis

Calculated per opening on your house, not to the county minimum.

7-Year Workmanship Warranty

If anything fails because of our installation, we come back and fix it.

Related Resources

Hurricane Screens →Hurricane Screens Oak Island →Hurricane Shutters Southport →Cost Calculator →

Hurricane Screens for Your Southport Porch

We will measure the span, tell you whether it needs motorizing, and quote the porch as its own line rather than folding it into a whole-house number.

(910) 256-1288

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Author
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Matthew Burns

President/CEO at American Hurricane Shutters, Inc.

Matthew Burns is President/CEO of American Hurricane Shutters, the Carolinas' rated storm protection specialists founded in 2006 by Michael Burns. OSHA-30 certified and specializing in Miami-Dade and TAS-approved hurricane shutter systems, Matthew has personally overseen the installation of storm protection on thousands of homes from Emerald Isle to Myrtle Beach. His expertise covers accordion shutters, rolldown shutters, Bahama shutters, colonial shutters, hurricane panels, and fabric hurricane screens. Based in Wilmington, NC.