Security Shutter Cost UK 2026

£450–£900 manual and £700–£1,400 electric for a standard domestic window, fitted. Wider openings step up because the lath and barrel have to get heavier.

Not really — foam-filled laths are about noise, heat and rattle, not strength. What actually decides how secure a shutter is comes down to the lath itself (a solid single-skin aluminium or steel lath resists attack better than a light double-skin foam-filled one), how deep it sits in the guide rails, and the strength of the bottom rail and locks. If security is the real aim rather than blackout or draughts, ask for the lath gauge and material and, on a commercial job, whether it's tested to LPS 1175 — that's a measured rating rather than a sales adjective.

Very often, yes — and on more than one count. Many councils treat solid external shutters as harmful to the street scene and will only permit perforated, open-lath or internally mounted shutters, so the type you can have is often decided for you. A shutter can need planning permission, and if it carries any lettering or a logo it can also need advertisement consent; on a listed building you'll need listed building consent on top, and doing the work without it is a criminal offence. Talk to the conservation or planning officer before you order, because a refused retrospective application means taking it back off.

Manual is fine up to roughly 2m and cheaper to buy and to repair. Above that the curtain gets heavy enough that electric is the sensible answer, and on a shopfront opened daily it pays for itself in wear.

Fifteen to twenty-five years for the curtain and guides on a domestic install, longer if it's serviced. The wearing parts are the motor, the springs and the bottom-rail seal, and those are what you'll replace once or twice over the shutter's life rather than the whole unit. An annual service catches a tired motor or a fraying spring before it strands the curtain halfway — our shutter repair guide sets out what each of those fixes costs.