Beauty and Brains

Beauty and Brains

Indian River Shutter can be instrumental (sounds good) in not only adding some beauty to your home, or business but also providing important energy efficiency as well. Part of the process of selecting the right window treatment can involve not just an aesthetic decision but can actually save you money and help the planet as well. And hey, who doesn’t want to save the planet?

If you think about the solar impact on your living and working spaces your new shutters can be an expenditure that saves your money today and tomorrow. The right SHUTTER from Indian River Shutter can reduce heat loss in winter and help reduce interior cooling costs in summer, which saves you money every day in the long hot summer season in South Florida.

According to the US Energy Department shutters can reduce solar heat gain as much as 65% on SOUTH-FACING windows and 77% on West-facing windows. In the past, the majority of shutters were made of metal or wood which needed maintenance or replacement every five years. Today shutters are made from a variety of materials and treated with synthetic fabric laminates that are also treated to reduce mildew and fading.

You should ideally select ones that are both opaque and tightly woven. A outwardly light–colored shutter will reflect the maximum solar radiation preventing its passage into the living or working spaces within.

You could select a security or wind resistant exterior aluminum shutters from Indian River Shutter so that they limit the dramatic heating of our long summer but on those brief cool winter days let the warm sun in when wanted, and provide security when not in use. They can be selected in fixed, hinged, multifold or sliding.

Plantation shutters are installed on the inside of the windows and are typically chosen for the beauty they add to the home or office, and for no additional charge they also provide the additional benefit of an “R Value” in the range of 2.77 – 3.17 [source: The Smart Energy Alliance]

The “R Value” refers to a “measure of thermal resistance” or heat insulation capacity. The higher the R value the greater the material’s ability to act as a thermal, or HEAT Insulator. Thus if you want to keep out the heat, and improve the efficiency of your air conditioning, use a shutter with a higher R Value.

Shutters available in aluminum, vinyl or wood provide a very efficient passive thermal insulator. Wood is slightly better as a material that is a poor heat conductor, but increasingly a variety of shutters are made with a focus on their capacity to act as a thermal barrier, it obviously provides an important additional benefit to having beautiful shutters installed in your home and office.

Give us a call (888) 354-2342 and we’ll be happy to talk to you about how Indian River Shutter can help.