Exterior Vinyl Shutters

The Exterior Vinyl Shutters: A High-Quality Alternative the Wooden Shutter

Window shutter is a window covering that has variety of frames (vertical, horizontal) avaliable and is built-in for many reasons. It is used to control the amount of sunlight entering the house (or more specifically, the certain room), to protect privacy, to give protection against bad weather, and most noticeable, to add extra aesthetics to a house or a building. In the basic division of window shutter, we have interior and exterior shutters. Since the title of this article is “exterior vinyl shutters”, we will not discuss characteristics of interior shutters.

Originally, the exterior shutters were constructed for many reasons we mentioned in the first paragraph (sunlight, privacy…). When talking about materials the shutters are made of, the wood is most used, but there are some materials that are becoming dominant, such as fiberglass, PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and vinyl.

Exterior Vinyl shutter are becoming dominant because of its quality, attractiveness, durability, easy maintaining, and many other properties they possess. It is also easy to implement them in various shapes and colors. They are lightweight comparing to heavy metal or wood shutters, so they are much easier to install. In most cases, they are inexpensive in comparison to handmade wooden shutters. They are also very durable, and many of the vinyl shutter companies will give you years of warranty.

Of the interested characteristics of exterior vinyl shutters is that they are not painted; their color in incorporated into shutter itself. You can also chose from many styles the purchaser will offer. The majority of purchasers will also let you chose colors (the most popular being white, brown, green, blue) and will let you chose the possibility of installation of newly bought shutter. It is also possible to chose various patterns (e.g. wood pattern) so your new exterior vinyl shutters would look as they are made of wood. A word about installation; if you never done type of work, or you do not have any tools at home, it is recommended to let the professionals to the job.

When talking about maintenance, exterior vinyl shutters are made of molded plastic, so their cleaning is much easier than cleaning of shutter made of some other materials (like wood or metal). All you need to have your vinyl shutters clean is soaped water and soft brush.

Well, we have said many advantages regarding vinyl shutters, but there are many authors who compare vinyl and wooden shutters, and in most cases say that wooden shutters have certain advantages over the vinyl ones. In other words, exterior vinyl shutters have some disadvantages.  One of the most common mentioned advantage of the wooden shutters is their far better longevity over the vinyl ones. Important advantage is also the repairing: wooden shutters can easily be repaired (by a professional off-course), as opposed to vinyl shutters which must be replaced.  As a subjective reason, they often claim that the wooden shutters have certain amount of warmth the vinyl shutters does not have.

As a conclusion, whether you will put the wooden or vinyl exterior shutters, the decision is all yours. As you have just read, there are many pros, but also cons (especially compared to wooden shutters) of exterior vinyl shutters.