13 / Composite
Composite shutters
2.5" · 3.5" · 4.5"
An engineered wood core under a cured, moisture-resistant coating, milled into a framed panel and hung on hinges. It will not warp, cup or yellow in a room that gets steam, which is why it is the shutter we fit by default. It weighs more than basswood, so a wide opening takes more panels — and it costs less.
Alpharetta, GA · living room
What it is, in numbers.
As installed
- Louvre width
- 2.5" · 3.5" · 4.5"
- Width
- 24" – 120"
- Height
- 24" – 120"
- Panel width
- 29" maximum per panel
- Material
- Engineered wood core, moisture-resistant coating
- Finish
- Factory-cured whites and off-whites
- Tilt
- Hidden rear tilt · centre tilt rod
- Mount
- Inside or outside, on a full-perimeter frame
- Lead time
- 4 – 5 weeks from measure
- Warranty
- 5 years on the panels and hardware
Options we quote
Fabrics are chosen from the sample books at the estimate — we carry the full range to your house rather than asking you to pick from a screen.
How much daylight each fabric actually stops.
These are the figures we quote at the kitchen table. They shift a few points with the mount and the direction the window faces, which is why we measure before we promise.
Louver angle
22% → 97% blocked
- Louvres open
- 22% blocked
- Louvres tilted up
- 70% blocked
- Louvres closed
- 94% blocked
- Closed, with the frame
- 97% blocked
A 3.5" louvre is thicker than a slat, so flat open it still hides a little glass.
Daylight on the ceiling, nothing at eye level. Where most shutters sit all day.
Light escapes at the pins on each end of every louvre, and down the tilt rod.
The perimeter frame shuts the edge gap a blind leaves. Short of a blackout fabric, this is the darkest thing we fit.
Light: 55% blocked34°
Drag the slats. This is the range this line covers on a typical window — from 22% at its most open to 97% closed. Your actual number depends on the fabric, the mount and which way the window faces.
Get the exact number for your windowA shutter is joinery, not a window covering.
It is screwed to the casing, it stays with the house, and it is why the lead time is five weeks instead of two.
What the coating is actually for
Wood fails in a wet room from the ends in: the grain drinks, the louvre swells, and a swollen louvre stops sitting flat in its pins. A composite panel has nothing in the core that moves that way and a cured coating over all of it, ends included. That is why it goes in the bathrooms and over the sink, and it is why it still reads white in ten years rather than going the colour of old paint.
It is the heavy one, and you see that in the stiles
The same solid panel is why we cap a single composite shutter at about 29" wide before its own weight starts working on the hinges. On a wide opening that means more panels, and every extra panel stands another pair of stiles in the glass. From about 80" across we put the basswood price next to it at the estimate and let you decide whether the view back is worth the difference.
Rooms we install these in most: Bathroom · Kitchen · Primary bedroom · Nursery · Front elevation
The same line, in 7 Georgia houses.
8 photographs
What people ask about composite shutters.
The panel will. What we watch is the frame and the hardware — in a small bathroom with no fan, water sits on the sill, so we set the frame clear of it and spec a hidden rear tilt so there is no rod for condensation to run down. We have these over tubs across the north metro and have not been called back to one.
Bigger louvres mean fewer of them, so fewer lines across the glass and more view. On anything over about 36" tall we default to 3.5", which is what most Georgia houses get. A 4.5" louvre suits a tall, wide window and looks heavy on a small one, and 2.5" is for the small openings — a bathroom, a transom, a café panel — where a big louvre is out of scale.
It arrives finished and cured in the colour you chose; we do not paint composite on site, because a brushed coat over a factory finish chips at the pins the first time the louvres move. There is a run of whites and off-whites to hold against your casing at the estimate, and if none of them is close enough we would put you in basswood, which takes a colour match properly.
Three lines next to this one.
Free in-home estimate
See composite samples in your own light.
We bring the composite books to your kitchen table, measure every window, and price the job on the spot. Free, about an hour.