The main job is turning an outdoor area into a room you can use in more weather than you can now.

Adjustable louvres let you angle the sun off a west-facing patio while keeping the breeze and the view. Close them right down and you get rain protection and privacy. Open them fully and the space goes back to being open air. That range is what separates a shutter from a fixed privacy screen or a café blind, both of which are either on or off.

Secondary uses we fit regularly:

Privacy screening. Between neighbouring properties on small blocks, along boundary fences, or across a bedroom window that looks straight into next door.

Pool and courtyard enclosure. Louvred rather than solid, so the space still breathes.

Carports and garage openings. Ventilation with security.

Balcony enclosure. Particularly on units and coastal builds where wind is the limiting factor.

Wet internal rooms. Occasionally, where someone wants a shutter in a bathroom that also needs to handle direct water rather than just steam.

Timber will not survive outdoors in this climate no matter how it’s finished, and PVC is an internal product that goes brittle under sustained UV. Aluminium is the only one of the three built for weather.

The extrusion doesn’t absorb water, so there’s nothing to swell or rot. The powder coat is baked onto the metal rather than painted on, which is what stops it flaking the way a wet-area paint job eventually does. For coastal homes we specify [marine grade powder coat], which is the difference between a finish that holds and one that chalks off within a few years in salt air.

The louvres themselves are heavier gauge than an internal shutter, because they need to sit still in wind rather than rattle.