Rental window treatments live a hard life: tenants yank cords, blinds snap, cheap shades look tired by the second turnover. Plantation shutters are the landlord's answer because they remove the failure points — no cords to break, no fabric to stain, no mechanisms to jam — and because a factory-built standard line means unit twelve matches unit one, years later.
Why shutters survive tenants
Start with what breaks on every other treatment. Corded blinds: the cords snap, tangle, or get cut. Fabric shades: they stain and they're a pain to clean. Cheap vinyl blinds: slats crack and the whole thing looks defeated within a year. REDI shutters have hidden gear tilt — no tilt rod, no cords, nothing to grab and yank. The 3.5-inch louvers are a wood-core structure under a scratch-resistant water-based paint, and the Snow White finish wipes clean with a damp cloth. There is simply less to break.
The consistency point matters more than landlords expect. Every shutter is a stocked factory-built size in one finish — so when you need to replace a single damaged panel in unit 4 three years from now, the replacement matches the original exactly. No dye lots, no discontinued fabrics, no “close enough”.
The turnover advantage
Between tenants, window treatments are either a cleaning job or a replacement job. Shutters make it a cleaning job: damp cloth across the flat louvers, thirty seconds a window, done. Compare that to replacing a unit's worth of blinds every turnover — the purchase, the install time, the disposal — and the shutter math starts looking very different over a five- or ten-year hold.
Speed matters during turnovers too: every vacant week costs rent. Factory-built shutters ship fast — most shutters delivered in as little as 48 hours — so a turnover refresh doesn't wait on a custom shop's production queue.
Measuring and ordering across units
Rental units in the same building or complex often share floor plans — which means they share window sizes. Measure one unit carefully (steel tape, three widths, three heights, smallest of each, 1-3/4-inch depth check for inside mount), then verify rather than assume in the next unit: same plan doesn't always mean same opening, especially after remodels. Keep a master list — property, unit, room, window, RS size — and reorders become a five-minute job.
- Measure every window — never copy sizes from 'identical' units without spot-checking at least one window per room
- Standardize on inside mount where depth allows: cleaner look, harder for tenants to knock loose
- Combine all units into ONE order — the $200 flat delivery spreads across every window in the order
- Order one spare of your most common size: a damaged panel swaps in same-day instead of waiting on a reorder
- Photograph each finished window with its RS size written on the back of the photo — your future self will thank you
Full measuring technique in our how-to-measure guide, size matching on the size chart.
Install: your handyman, your timeline
We don't offer installation — the DIY model is what keeps the price at from $18.95/sq. ft. For rentals, that's usually a feature: your handyman installs during the turnover window on your schedule, not a vendor's. A standard window takes well under an hour once someone's done one or two, and a whole unit is a single day's work. Our install tools guide is written so you can hand it to your handyman as the job sheet.
Warranty note: every shutter carries the manufacturer's limited lifetime warranty, with claims handled by the installer. Keep your order confirmation emails — they're your proof of purchase and your reorder record in one. Delivery details
Rental-property questions, answered
For landlords who hold properties long-term, yes. They're cordless (nothing for tenants to break or tangle), they wipe clean between tenants in minutes, and the Snow White finish looks the same in every unit, every year. The math is per-window square footage × $18.98/sq. ft. plus one $200 flat delivery per order — and one order can cover multiple units.
One order. Every unit. Done.
Measure your units, combine everything into one order — from $18.95/sq. ft. with a single flat $200 delivery — and hand the install sheet to your handyman. Most shutters delivered in as little as 48 hours.