Do shutters help with insulation and draughts?
Shutters do help — but the honest version of the answer has limits, and any company giving you a precise percentage without seeing your glazing is guessing.
1 April 2026 · 5 min read
What actually happens when you close a shutter
A closed shutter panel creates a pocket of still air between the louvres and the glass. Still air is a poor conductor, so that pocket slows the movement of heat out of the room and blunts the cold downdraught you feel by a window on a January evening in an older Ipswich property.
Where you'll notice it most
- · Single-glazed or early double-glazed windows in period homes.
- · Large bay windows, where the glass area is huge relative to the wall.
- · North-facing rooms that never get direct sun.
What shutters won't do
They aren't a substitute for fixing failed glazing units, rotten frames or missing draught seals. Crisp Windows — the window side of our family business — has spent three decades on exactly those problems, which is why we'll tell you straight if a shutter is treating a symptom rather than the cause.
Summer works too
Tilt the louvres closed on a south-facing window on a hot afternoon and you cut solar gain before it enters the room, while still keeping the window open behind the panel for airflow.
