All of us had such a traumatic experience Last June when a tree branch went through our family room window in the midst of a dire thunderstorm.
Wind speeds climbed significantly and all of us heard the winds howling outside while all of us were at the dining room table eating dinner.
I don’t believe anyone was saying anything when it happened, because I remember our wife nearly tumbled from her dining room chair since she was startled so badly. I spilled a drink and our child screamed. When the glass shattered, it sounded like a small explosion. Needless to say, I hastily covered the opening with a garbage tote after removing the branch. It was so wet around the broken window frame by that point I struggled to get the plastic to stay in the right location to prevent more water from getting into the house. Once the episode was over, I made the choice in our mind to order storm windows the entirely next morning. Although I had never considered needing them for their designed purpose, I had mulled replacing our single pane windows with double pane windows, storm rated windows to lower our energy costs. These double pane windows are so much better at insulating the home from the elements outside, both for impact protection and as shields against the temperature. It was a large expense in the end, however we’re already seeing a drop in our cooling cycles from the air conditioning after only having them installed for a few weeks all together. I believe the home is retaining the cold indoor temperatures for longer with the thicker windows in this location. If I knew it was going to make such a huge difference with energy costs, I would have had them installed years ago, long before that big accident last June.