Plywood Hurricane Shutters: Keep it simple stupid

I was looking around the Internet today and doing more research on plywood Hurricane shutters. I ran across an extensive and relatively intricate set of instructions at The Engineered Wood Association (APA) on how to install plywood Hurricane shutters.

After reading through their detailed instructions (download a copy here) I was having memories of The Night Before Christmas. No, not the book, the actual night before Christmas, when we of supposedly handy skills break out screw driver and wrench and do our best to interpret Chinese English as we walk through the 40-step assembly instructions for our kids new trike. So it is in my house anyway. These days I just hand the instructions to my wife and fulfill the role of robot, acting only after being given explicit instructions from my more intelligent half. To be fair, the APA instructions I’m having a little fun with are great in that they show you how to mount plywood Hurricane shutters on a number of different types of structures such as masonry, wood frame, etc. Most of the instructions I see don’t even address the different kinds of materials you have to attach your plywood shutters too! The APA also has information on how to make your plywood Hurricane shutters even stronger by installing braces on the back of the plywood. Again, probably not for me or the average Dick or Jane but for those that are truly handy you’ll probably enjoy these materials.

My overall point is that public safety organizations like FEMA and FLASH have been recommending the simpler and less timely method of Plywood overlap installation vs. the older inset method that utilizes barrel bolts. No one wants to see people give up on installing their plywood shutters because it is too complicated or takes too long. As public safety organizations have matured they’ve learned that that their ultimate success is greatly increased by making their recommended solutions simpler, and less time consuming for laypeople. A representative of FEMA that we spoke with recently who also worked for The Red Cross for 15 years cited the example of how CPR instruction now focuses on chest compression and less on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The rationale is the same as the one we see now for plywood Hurricane shutters. The best method is the one that quickly and easily allows laypeople like me to get the job done. Drilling holes in the insets of your home’s windows, inserting copper inserts into those holes and then getting the barrel bolts on your plywood shutters to match up with those holes and inserts gets a man like me thinking about those Christmas Eve assembly sessions from hell.

The old axiom KISS applies: Keep it simple, stupid.

As an aside I read some interesting information on plywood Hurricane shutter installation on another blog post here. One comment of note was from a person saying that finding the appropriate barrel bolts had become next to impossible. I just took this as another good reason to just say yes to the more current overlap method.