Every one of us had a fairly traumatic experience Last month when a tree branch burst through our large family room window during a thunderstorm. Wind speeds climbed significantly as well as both of us heard the growling of the storm while both of us were at the family room table eating lunch. I don’t think anyone was talking when it the branch came in, because I remember my wifey nearly fell from her chair since she was so startled by it. I spilled a drink as well as my young child screamed. When the glass broke, it sounded like a small explosion. Needless to say, I had to quickly cover the shard-lined opening with a garbage tote after removing the branch. It was so wet around the window’s frame by that point I struggled to get the plastic to stay in place to prevent more water from coming into the house. Once the episode was over, I made the decision in my mind to order storm windows the next morning. Although I had never considered getting them for their designed purpose, I had mulled replacing all of our single pane windows with new double pane, storm rated windows to lower our utility bills. These double pan windows are far better at insulating the beach cabin from the elements outside, both for the impact protection as well as as temperature shields. It was a sizable expense in the end result, but we’re already seeing a drop in cooling cycles from the cooling system after only having them in for a few weeks in total. I think the beach cabin is retaining the chilly indoor temperatures for so much longer with the thicker windows in place. If I knew it was going to make such a sizable difference with the cost of our utility bills, I would have installed storm windows years ago, long before that scary accident last month.