It’s fair to say that aluminium louvres have come a long, long way. Compare the shutters supplied and installed by this company with those from decades ago and you’ll see that the modern version is sleeker, more stylish and made to last thanks to superior manufacturing processes and materials. The louvre shutters installed by this company are made from aluminium, and they are widely known to be far stronger and durable than virtually any other material, especially when it comes to withstanding the elements.
The very first shutters were used thousands of years ago in ancient Greece but like the shutters of today, they performed very much the same function. They were made from marble and were invented to provide shade from the sun, ventilation and privacy.
Marble shutters, as you’d expect, were not adjustable. They were fixed in place, so the ability for the shutters to provide ongoing shade and ventilation was limited to certain times of the day. But as the use of shutters began to be more widely embraced throughout other Mediterranean countries and climates, the designs evolved. Shutters with adjustable slats made from wood were developed, and they were a more flexible way of reducing heat while creating just the right level of light and privacy at any given time of the day. However, unlike the aluminium shutters we use today, wood was not totally weather-resistant and shutters would soon warp and buckle, and become less weather-proof with age.
In cooler locations like England and northern Europe, solid shutters were the norm during the medieval era. At this time, windows weren’t made with glass, so these solid shutters provided a firm closing which was necessary for security in these often war-torn countries. In Tudor and Elizabethan England, glass began to be used in windows but its sheer expense meant that most people could only use the material in the top half of their windows. Shutters were still put in place on the bottom half of windows until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when window glass began to be manufactured on a wider scale and became more affordable as a result. This meant the entire window could be glassed in, but shutters were still highly prized for their decorative qualities as well as for added insulation and security.
All of the benefits that shutters deliver now are the same as way back then: ventilation, security, shade, heat control and privacy. The big difference is the aluminium louvre shutters of today are durable and are very simple to adjust the louvres. Technology has a lot to do with this. Louvre shutters can be adjusted through the push of a button or a flick of the switch. In doing so, they add a lot of convenience alongside all of the other advantages that louvre shutters have been giving us for thousands of years.