Hurricane Protection | Ocean Breeze Exterior Remodeling

July 10, 2018
0

It’s always a good time to prep for hurricane season!

Tags : Hurricane Myrtle Beach protection

No matter what time of year you read this e-mail, you can’t go wrong if it makes you want to prep for hurricane season.

The Atlantic Ocean hurricane season runs from June through November every year. In recent years, our area has seen several significant landfalls. Hurricanes are interesting in how they affect us. You might have escaped unscathed, might have had trees or limbs in the yard, or could have even lost your roof. However, your neighbor might have experienced just the opposite.

My own experience with the last two hurricanes to hit our area is that the nearby yards flooded, and I lost a few shingles each time. No windows were broken by flying debris, but we installed clear Lexan hurricane panels over all the openings.

Here’s a few things I would recommend to prepare for hurricane season to help get you and your family ready.

1. Put together a disaster box. Here’s a link to a great inventory list for a disaster box- https://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit. Once you get it packed, just throw it in the closet or a corner in the garage and hope you never need it.

You can go further and pack Get Home Bags or Bug Out Bags, but the disaster box is a bare minimum. If you want more info on those, just e-mail me back and ask. I used to do contract work for FEMA, and one of our jobs was helping people assemble these.

2. Protect your home. You need to install some type of protection for all the openings in your home, to include all doors and windows. Our company installs several different types, so get in touch if you don’t have this. The most important things to consider for this are that you have the work done before a named storm and know how to use it.

I mention ‘named storms’ because most insurance companies will not help you out if you wait until after there’s a named storm in the Atlantic. Also keep in mind that most insurance companies provide discounts for various types of opening protection, like our Lexan panels.

3. Have a plan. Decide beforehand under what circumstances you will evacuate. Don’t wait on the storm and then decide. In addition, decide where you’ll evacuate and what you will take with you. For any storms that you will shelter in place and not evacuate, plan for that as well, to include water, food, and lighting.

There’s so much more that could go into this, but I didn’t want to write a book length e-mail. If you want more information, feel free to get in touch or come by the showroom.

Your storm guide,

David Powers

You can find us at…

Ocean Breeze Exterior Remodeling

843-238-4798

www.oceanbreezeexteriors.com

Our showroom is located at 739 Sandy Lane in Surfside Beach, SC

September 20, 2017
2

What Do I Do with My Vinyl Windows in a Hurricane?

Tags : Eze Breeze Hurricane Myrtle Beach

Category : Hurricane Protection

A couple of weeks ago our area here in Myrtle Beach got spared from the wrath of Hurricane Irma. It was a good wake up call, though, as most of us went ahead and completed some much needed preps on our homes and businesses.

We tied things down. We got rid of things laying around in yards. A few customers bought last minute storm panel installations. Everyone stocked up on bottled water.

And we got a lot of phone calls from our customers and even some of our competitor’s customers. Apparently, some of our competitors wouldn’t offer any help with the big pre-hurricane question…

What Do I Do with My Vinyl Windows in a Hurricane?

Here’s my advice.

Vinyl windows go by different names, but they’re all mostly the same, whether you call them vinyl windows, porch panels, vinyl panels, Eze-Breeze, or something else.

Almost all of them are rated for a certain wind speed. This means that during testing, some of the panels probably blew out of the frame. It also means they won’t warranty damage to the window panels if you leave them in during a hurricane.

Here’s a sticker from a window in our showroom that is on all of our vinyl windows.

The 65 mile per hour winds would place it in the tropical storm and above range.

This would mean that you should take all your panels out and put them in a big stack in the garage. Now, if you think about it, this is a pretty tedious process, especially if your forget to mark where they go. I mean, it would take you days to get them all figured out.

I don’t recommend taking them all out.

Here’s my recommendations on what to do, based on 30 years installing them, too many hurricane and tropical storm experiences, and having them on my own house.

If you have a lot of nice stuff in the room with vertical sliding windows, like a TV, expensive outdoor furniture, breakables, a mini bar, carpet, etc, leave the windows up. Don’t remove them. Don’t push them down. Take your chances. Honestly, I’ve seen very few of these ever blow out of the frame. I would rather protect what’s in the room from as much rain and wind as possible.

If the room is a basic outdoor use room with vertical vinyl windows and you’re worried about them, push them all to the bottom. By pushing them all down, you’ve strengthened the entire configuration by putting all the windows together in one section.

If you have large horizontal sliding panels like garage screens or sliding door sized sections, remove them and store them in the garage. These tend to blow out much easier and also make up a huge surface susceptible to puncture from blowing debris.

If you happen to have any windows damaged by blowing debris or wind blowing them out, once the hurricane has passed and we resume normal operations again, just bring them by. It doesn’t cost much to reroll new vinyl into the panes.

If you have any other questions leading up to or after a hurricane, please give us a call.

You can find us at…

Ocean Breeze Exterior Remodeling

843-238-4798

www.oceanbreezeexteriors.com

Our showroom is located at 739 Sandy Lane in Surfside Beach, SC