Before you sign
In the Keys the Label Tells You Less Than Anywhere Else
Monroe County carries Florida's highest design wind speeds and works from the statewide approval field. That combination means the approval label on the box is a poor guide, and the calculation is the whole thing.
Give us the mile marker and tell us whether the living floor is up on piers. Those two answers shape the job more than the window does.
What to ask any quote, including ours
None of these are difficult questions for a contractor who has done the work.
- What design pressure was calculated for each opening, and how was it derived?
- What height above grade was used — and was it measured from the ground or from the deck?
- Does the named approval hold at the actual size going into the opening?
- What corrosion specification has been priced for anchors, fixings and hardware?
Why one figure for the house is the warning sign
A single pressure applied to every opening is quick and it is wrong in both directions at once. Some openings end up over-specified and paid for, others end up under-specified, and the under-specified ones are the ones that matter.
On an elevated house it is worse, because openings on the main floor and openings at ground level genuinely do carry different numbers.
When an HVHZ product is the right answer here
Nothing requires a Miami-Dade acceptance in Monroe County. It is nonetheless often the sensible buy, because the tested protocol is more onerous and the pressures here are the highest in Florida.
The test is still whether the calculation points there. Buying to a number you have been shown is right; buying to a label is only accidentally right.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.