Hurricane Windows

Modern ways of hurricane-proofing your windows are expensive, understandably, and difficult to perform. You can get roll-down aluminum shades that cover your windows but can cost upwards of thousands of dollars, or you can buy hurricane-resistant windows that may not necessarily hold if, say, your neighbor's palm tree makes a bee-line for your living room. And, at any rate, these can be expensive to buy and expensive to install.

You could get plywood and mount it into pre-set mounting holes in your house (many do this, I'm told), but it can take more than a day to perform this task, as you must insert screws into the wood approximately every four microns.

Or, you can get you summa these here jiggers.

Hurricane windows are a sheet of two-inch-thick plexiglass with mounting holes drilled into the top. Slide them into the high-strength metal guides flanking the windows (two on each side, one on the bottom), and bolt the hurricane window into place (three decent-sized bolts per side oughta do it). Then bolt in the top.

The obvious advantage over plywood is that these will never warp or rot, so you will never have to rush to the store the next time a hurricane churns up. Plus, in a busy hurricane summer, you can just leave them up and let natural light stream in.

Compared to super-protective storm windows, this should be cheaper to install, and you don't have to replace your current windows. The sliding frames could be painted to blend in with existing shutters.

The added bonus is that you can watch the storm rage impotently outside, knowing that your windows are safe. Your roof, I suppose, is another matter, but I promise I'm thinking about that.