Hed: Low-Tech Tips: Get Working Shutters
DEK: Why don't they make these anymore?
CAT Home and garden
PHOTO CREDIT: White pine journal, published and printed 1930, scanned

What would you pay for a device that controls sunlight while allowing ventilation, that provides personal security without looking like bars on the window, that protects your windows in time of hurricanes and terrible weather, and looks good too; You certainly wouldn't call it low-tech. 

But that is what shutters were designed to do, before they were stamped out of plastic and screwed on the wall beside the windows and everyone forgot how they actually worked.

They can even get more sophisticated, coming in both fixed and operable louvre designs. "Fixed and operable louvers shed rain, allow air transfer, filter direct sunlight, protect from small flying debris, and provide privacy. Operable louvered shutter allow for greater control in light and ventilation." <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shutter">(wp)</a>

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