Marbella Shutters

Marbella Shutters

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During the 1960’s and 1970’s the plastics industry was nowhere near as advanced as the industry is today. 30 or 40 years ago the only decorative shutters on the market were made of timber or of a plastic material called ABS.

ABS was a very easy material to work with and most ABS shutters, if not all, during this period were vacuum formed. This method involved warming a single sheet of material to a point where it softened. It was placed over a mould and a cowl positioned in place. The air was then extracted from within the cowl to leave a formed shape. This method of construction meant that the louvres were false (or ‘closed’) and gave a louvred appearance. These are called Marbella shutters.

Some shutters used a composite construction of timber frames with a strip of louvred ABS form in the centre to create the louvred effect.

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ABS could be painted but one drawback with ABS is that over many years the U.V. in sunlight would destroy the structural integrity of the shutter so that it became brittle like eggshell. Eventually the material would crack and the morning after a night of high wind would often find the owner of these ABS shutters seeing half a shutter on his lawn and half a shutter still in place on the wall!

If you are looking to replace one or two broken or damaged ABS Marbella shutters, so as to avoid the need to replace all of the shutters on your property (our shutters do not look like Marbella shutters) we can help.

We can supply Marbella shutters in one width option only of 15½” and in 36” / 42”/ 48” /54” and 60” heights.

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Interesting fact

Did you know that the UK was responsible for importing tens of thousands of pairs of shutters that originated from Sweden!

This Swedish built shutter had a louvre size that is very close to the size of our polypropylene shutter (1 inch) and in the narrower widths looked almost identical to what we offer you today. The louvres were individual with spaces between them (we call this an open louvre). These were available in the wider widths of 21” and 24” as well a 12” 15” and 18” variations.