New York's Frequently Asked Questions About Shutters

For more than 28 years, we’ve heard every question about shutters imaginable from our customers in New York. And we’ve gathered the top ten of them here. Perhaps in these questions and answers you’ll find answers to questions of your own. If not, please don’t hesitate to contact Sunburst Shutters New York directly. We’re here to help you and happy to do so.

That is based on how you want the shutters to interact with your home’s décor. Do you want a shutter that contrasts your wall paint color and has clean lines? Polywood® plantation shutters are ideal for you. Or are you looking to duplicate the wood in your home as closely as possible? Ovation® wood shutters are the ultimate fit for you.

Plantation shutters are celebrated for being energy efficient. And to get the most energy savings, our Polywood Shutter Insulation System is the only choice.

For the budget-conscious, blinds can be temporary window treatments to cover your windows. Store-bought blinds tend to deteriorate over time, with its strings breaking and the loops that hold the slats in place falling apart. And they’re not easy to clean. Even if you're budget-conscious, Sunburst Shutters blinds have the durability and craftsmanship lacking in off-the-rack, store-bought, or online blinds.

Shades offer an assortment of colors, materials, and unique patterns, transforming your window into artwork. By simply pulling up the fabric of the shade, your full window is exposed and you can see out onto your New York neighborhood.

Draperies also are available in a wide variety of color, fabric, and patterns. They are a traditional alternative for a window treatment. Installing thick panels between the drapes and the window provides you with light and temperature block-out capabilities. And unlike other window treatments, you won’t have to clean draperies for five years.

If you are searching for a window treatment that lasts more than 10 years, saves you actual bucks on your energy bills, and looks lovely on your windows, shutters are the choice for your home. Not only are shutters durable, but they’re also beautiful and energy efficient. As a matter of fact, Polywood shutters insulate up to 70% better than a similar wood shutter. That's energy savings you can't get with any other window treatment.

No other window treatment gives you control over privacy and light as plantation shutters do. And with their large louvers, Polywood plantation shutters give your room a clean in vogue feel whether they’re closed or open.

An inappropriately installed window treatment can be difficult to open and can get damaged easily. We have a skilled installation crew that comes to your home and installs your window treatment with great accuracy, making sure that each one operates perfectly – and doesn’t get damaged throughout.

But before we get to installing your shutters, we bring shutter samples to your home so we can custom build your window treatment together. Learn more about our free in-home consultation.

Your plantation shutter slats – or louvers – can be moved easily by adjusting them up or down. Usually, a tilt rod mounted on the front of the shutters lets you adjust the louvers. If you would like to move the louvers with your hand, we advise buying shutters with hidden tilt-rods or rear-mounted tilt rods. This gives your shutters a clean, contemporary appearance.

Our Polywood shutters last 50+ years – more than any other shutter on the market. That’s why these plantation shutters are a permanent fixture that adds to your home’s resale value. Learn more about the durability of our shutters.

Plantation shutters are a piece of cake to clean because they have large louvers and their tilt bars are either hidden or mounted on the rear. Gently tilt them open and dust them like furniture – or wipe smudges with a damp cloth.

Plantation shutters are custom designed to fit your windows just right. They become a permanent fixture of your home, increasing its resale value. It’s not possible to move these shutters from one house to another.

Plantation shutters are an investment that provides you with temperature control, energy efficiency, and privacy. They are custom manufactured and installed on your windows to become permanent fixtures. Not only are they exquisite and energy saving, but plantation shutters also increase the value of your residence. We’ve seen it first hand in New York!

A half shutter allows you privacy on the bottom and leaves the top open for light and view. It’s called a café style shutter. But is it the appropriate look for a plantation shutter?

Cafe Shutters Cafe Style Shutters With Divider

What it comes down to is style choice – whether you like the look of a half shutter or that of a plantation shutter with a divider rail.

A full length shutter with a divider rail “completes” your window, giving it a polished look – and allowing you to close the bottom louvers for privacy while leaving the top louvers open for light. At night, you have the option of closing the top louvers as well for privacy and security. That’s also helpful during the day when the sun is preventing you from watching TV. And don’t worry about forfeiting any of your view. A 3.5" or 4.5" louver will almost disappear when opened flat and gives you plenty of room to look through.

Piece of cake! Call us at 631-246-3930 or fill out the form below to schedule your free in-home consultation, and we’ll take it from there. We come out to your home to measure the windows you want to shutter and bring samples of all of our shutter products and their available options. This way we can provide you with the most accurate shutter estimate for your project. Schedule your in-home consultation today!

Absolutely! There’s seldom a reason to remove or do work on your current window trim when installing new plantation shutters. Natural Ovation wood shutters and deluxe Polywood shutters are offered in an array of frame styles to fit easily into your existing window trim. If your windows don’t have trim, you can choose a specific frame style to install right onto the wall around your window to fix your beautiful new shutters to your window opening.

Your Sunburst Shutters installer will measure each of your home’s windows during your free design consultation to make sure that your new shutters will fit gorgeously with your window trim.

Sunburst Shutters New York is happy to provide a collection of window coverings made right here in America. Our marquee Polywood plantation shutters are 100% American-made, from the creation of our patented Polywood material to the building of the shutters themselves. Not only does that result in savings passed on to you from cutting unnecessary shipping and handling costs, it also gives you the benefit of knowing you’re choosing an all-American product for your New York house.

And Polywood isn’t the only shutter that’s from the U.S. Our stunning Reclaimed Wood shutters are constructed with lumber harvested from places across the country, from homespun Southern barn doors to beautiful New England fences and more.

The main divide between a shutter that’s stained or painted is how the material of the shutter interacts with the color. Paint lays atop the material it’s coloring, covering the surface. Stains on the other hand seep into the shutter, bonding to the natural wood or Polywood material.

Each method comes with its unique benefits. There are typically a larger number of color choices for paints. With stained shutters, the color won’t lie over the natural wood grain, so you’re able to see the natural grooves and bumps of the material without a layer of paint hiding it.

During your in-home window design consultation, our team will bring samples of all our color options right to your door so you can easily match and complement colors with your existing interior design.

The complete plantation shutter process, beginning with your initial consultation through installation, will take about four to six weeks. The process takes this long because our goal is to build 100% custom shutters for your windows. To do that, we need to take exact measurements, utilize sophisticated software to design them, assemble your custom shutters manually, and get them to you prior to installation. Wood shutters tend to take longer than Polywood due to the extra steps needed to stain and treat the wood.

It will take a little time, but it’s an investment that’s definitely worth it.

We offer a start to finish shop-at-home experience. So we send shutter expert to you to measure all your windows, show you your options, and give you an accurate quote. The in-home consultation is 100% free. That’s the easiest way to start a window treatment project. If you’re just looking for a simple estimate, you can send us your window measurements through our contact form, or by calling us at 631-246-3930.

Whether or not to remove the trim depends on your own taste. If you want to keep the trim you already have, we’re able to build your shutters to fit with your current trim. If you like our shutter frames better, then you can remove the trim—but it’s not a necessity. If you want to go without trim or replace your trim, your Sunburst installer can help you find the right shutter to fit what you have in mind for your space.

If you’re a seasoned handyperson, you’re probably familiar with some of the process involved in installing shutters. However, installing shutters yourself may be a little complex for most New York residents. Our recommendation is to leave the installation to professionals that are certified and insured, that way you won’t risk damage to your shutters, your windows, or any other part of your house.

By far our most popular shutter offerings are our classic white Polywood® faux wood plantation shutters, and Ovation® wood shutters.

More specifically, the most common shutter configuration we sell is a 3.5” louver, non-textured finish, with an interior-mount Z-frame. If those words don’t mean anything to you, that’s ok. We’ll be happy to show you what all that means in person. Set up your free in-home consultation and we’ll show you what will look best on your windows.

Smooth finish shutters have a more chic look, whereas textured finish shutters look more natural and historic. However the perks to both types of plantation shutter finish are a little deeper, and ultimately it comes down to your own style.

Benefits of shutters with a smooth finish – A smooth finish to your shutters offer a solid, chic, sophisticated look. A smooth finish may be preferable if your home doesn’t have much in the way of wood textured accessories or furniture. A smooth finish is easier to see when it needs dusting, in comparison with a textured finish. We typically recommend a smooth finish for faux wood shutters like Polywood.

Benefits of shutters with a wood grain finish – A wood grain finish on your shutters gives you a more natural, wood-like look to your shutters. That’s awesome if you want to bring the look of nature inside, especially if you want to accentuate the look of your hardwood floors. A textured finish on your shutter louvers will also make it harder to see dust, which means you don’t have to dust them as often as you would if they were smooth. A wood-grain finish looks especially great on real wood shutters in New York.

Typically, the larger the surface area of your window, the more shutter panels you’ll want on it. Our recommendation is to use a single panel for windows up to 26” wide, two panels for windows up to 50” wide, and four for windows up to 98” wide.

Single wide panels aren’t as room-friendly as multiple separate panels. Often, wide panel shutters won’t fit flush against the wall due to their size. Multiple smaller panels fix that.

For those windows that you might open or shut regularly, you’re usually better suited with multiple panels, since it’s easier to open them and they have more support from the shutter frame when you do open and shut them.

With Sunburst Shutters New York, any and all shutter measurements will be done by one of our installers for free as part of your in-home consultation. Even if your window is in a hard to reach area of your home or has a distinct shape, our installers can get you an accurate measurement so that the shutters you get will perfectly match up with your windows.

At your complimentary shutter consultation, your Sunburst Shutters installer can help you narrow down your options from our extensive array of New York plantation shutters, featuring options for panel width, stains, and custom framing options.

So schedule your free consultation now by calling 631-246-3930 today.

Sunburst can help you find the best shutter for your rooms, despite how small your frame. We will work with an outside mount installation that attaches to the trim or wall outside the window pane . Your shutters will still have equivalent functionality and energy efficiency, and will integrate perfectly with your established decor.

If the louver is disconnected and hanging from the frame, you probably have a damaged louver pin. To mend this you need to remove the pin from both the louver and the stile with a set of needle-nose pliers or a utility knife. Once everything is withdrawn, stick the undamaged pin base into the same hole in the shutter stile, then slide the louver onto the pin. To acquire additional louver pins for free, just call us at 631-246-3930.

Pricing on plantation shutters revolves on the desired product line and window area. While we can give you a basic quote over the phone, complete prices are offered after our free in-person consultation. Call 631-246-3930 to make an appointment today.

Locate and pull out the broken staple away from the louver with some of needle-nose pliers. Then use some adhesive (like wood glue or epoxy) to cover the legs of a replacement staple. weave the staple through the loop on the louver and slide its legs into the previous staple holes on the tilt rod. For new shutter staples, call us at 631-246-3930.

Polywood shutters are some of the safest window treatments in New York. The durable, cord-free construction is great for kids and pets. The non-toxic and hypoallergenic paint and materials will never chip, splinter, or peel. And because Polywood is moisture and pest resistant, you will not have to check for bugs, mold, or wood rot.