Shalvey gets the worst of Sydney's summer. The Mount Druitt area is one of the hottest parts of the city, and a shutter facing west here is dealing with conditions a coastal suburb never sees. Heat is behind most of what fails.
We cover Shalvey in the 2770 postcode along with Blackett, Tregear, Bidwill, Willmot, Whalan and Lethbridge Park, and out to Mount Druitt and Plumpton.
The housing here dates mainly from the 1970s, solid brick on regular blocks, with shutters added over the years rather than built in at the start. Shutters here do genuine work, holding heat out through summer as much as securing the house.
A closed shutter keeps a west-facing room noticeably cooler than a blind or a curtain does, because it stops the heat outside the glass rather than after it has already come through. That makes a shutter which will not close properly a comfort problem as well as a security one, and in this part of Sydney that matters from November right through to March. If yours is stopping short of the sill, it is worth sorting before the heat sets in. Running them fully closed through the hottest part of the day makes more difference than most people expect, and a shutter that seals at the sill does far more than one that stops an inch short.
