Hurricanes in Florida are one of the more likely situations that require prepping. In the past decade, we have gone through at least 4 Hurricanes, with 3 of them causing us to spend more than 24 hours without electrical power. Being prepared in Florida means being ready for Hurricanes.
Hurricane Milton last year revealed to me some improvements that need to be made. Let’s take a look at our preparedness map.
One hole in our preps was revealed when we had high winds of 40-70 miles per hour pounding the back of our house for hours. It resulted in me sitting in my house watching my 12 foot wide, 8 foot high sliding glass door bow inwards from the pressure of the wind. Not good. So we needed to upgrade the security and shelter bricks of the prepping pyramid.
I decided to look into window fabric. It was expensive. I looked in to polycarbonate. One company wanted more than $2000 to cover my windows, and another $3200 to protect the sliding glass door. The issue is that the door is just too large for most products to cover.
I decided to find another solution. One came to me. I bought some of these panels from Lowe’s. I am attaching them to the house with 3M commercial fastening tape that’s kind of like Velcro on steroids. Two inch pieces placed 8 inches apart. I got it in white so it blends into the window frame when it isn’t in use. To make sure that it sticks, I am using a primer.
The total bill to cover 10 windows is $850.
Now on to the sliding glass door. It’s a monster at 12′ wide by 8′ high. I decided to turn the back porch into an emergency storage area by putting an electrically operated Kevlar curtain over the opening to the porch. (I did not use the company at the link.) The idea is that I will take everything that’s outside (like pool furniture and the like) place it on the porch, then close the Kevlar curtain. The cost of the curtain was about $4500.
So total cost to hurricane proof the house’s windows was just about $5300.
10 Comments
Michael · August 18, 2025 at 6:06 am
Polycarbonate hurricane covers are pretty good. The white Velcro style fasteners are interesting.
I noticed in the installs shown the covers were screwed into the wall around the windows.
I am really interested in your report after you install this system. Details like how hard it is to remove the semi-opaque polycarbonate covers after installing them. I understand wind speeds in Cat 2 is pretty high even with a near miss.
I suppose my concern if YOU can remove them by hand, how do they hold up to serious wind speed?
I helped a friend with large French Doors set up emergency security for them using steel building 2X4 replacement framing material (picture a steel wall studding framework @ 24 inches on center), polycarbonate sheets and installed screw mounting attachments into their home.
Two persons can install in about an hour including getting them out of the shed but you’re not going out that door until removed.
Divemedic · August 18, 2025 at 6:57 am
Think about which way the wind would need to blow in order to remove the panel.Check out this video of a wind test using these fasteners
https://youtu.be/3tkdsIAQuss?si=78JZ0xUx-hDqVN9U
Michael · August 18, 2025 at 7:53 am
Interesting video. I didn’t really see in the wind tunnel speeded up “installation” if they were using Velcro or not. From the others it looks like they have fairly deep inset brink style windows and used the Velcro system. Sounds like from the user video part they push from inside to use the windows as escape so that’s probably how they remove them for storage.
Not wishing you a hurricane friend but will be interested in your report if you have to use them. My experience with Velcro products is they suffer from sunlight damage like all plastic.
Still an interesting system. The installation for my friends French doors was more to prevent unauthorized destructive “Restraining Order” persons. I don’t know if Velcro would work that well in trouble times.
Divemedic · August 18, 2025 at 8:15 am
They are using Dual Lock. That company actually where I got the idea of using them instead of hardware.
FormerSSG · August 18, 2025 at 9:44 am
Pool furniture and umbrellas go in the pool, easy fix!
Divemedic · August 18, 2025 at 10:56 am
You would think, but my pool furniture is Sunbrella, and I don’t think the wife would appreciate me tossing $10,000 worth of furniture in the pool.
FormerSSG · August 19, 2025 at 8:40 am
You’re right!
Don Curton · August 18, 2025 at 1:45 pm
Interesting. I have plywood for all my windows, and doing everything on the ground level isn’t that difficult. It’s the second story windows where I start to have issues – not just the weight but the awkwardness of trying to balance it while climbing a ladder too. Getting the polycarbonate for just the second story would be a lifesaver.
James · August 18, 2025 at 2:02 pm
I’m in Florida as well. I’d rather not get into using tapcons to bolt these panels into the stucco around the window well, but the glass in my windows comes out close to the window frame. In your opinion would these be rigid enough to attach via the fastening tape to the window frames and not allow the glass to be broken which would be fairly close behind it? I see a lot of unanswered questions on the Lowes site so not bothering to ask there.
Aesop · August 20, 2025 at 12:21 pm
Why not Hurricane film? (Which also serves as Burglar Film.)
Too expensive?
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