On 18 January 2003 the Canberra bushfire reached the western edge of Bonython, and a good number of people here have thought about their windows differently ever since. The suburb wraps around Mount Stranger, and the western and southern fringes face open ground, so the exposure is real and it has not changed. Shutters do useful work in that setting, but only if the box is clear and the curtain seats properly. A shutter half full of leaf litter is not doing what its owner thinks it is doing.
We cover all of Bonython in the 2905 postcode, from the streets around Lower Stranger Pond across to the Isabella Plains and Monash boundaries. Greenway, Calwell and Gordon all adjoin the suburb and we service the whole Tuggeranong valley, so distance is not an issue.
Bonython was gazetted in 1986 and houses began going up from 1989, which puts most of the original shutter hardware into its fourth decade.
A solid shutter closed over glass reduces ember entry and shields the glazing from radiant heat, which is why shutters appear in bushfire construction guidance. What matters is whether it actually closes fully and whether the box and rails are clear. We can check that a shutter seats properly and clean out the housing while we are there. We will not tell you a shutter makes a house safe, because it does not. It is one part of a plan, and the plan matters more than the hardware.
