What we install · Impact Entry Doors
The Assembly Is Approved Together, and Salt Attacks the Cheapest Part
An approved entry door is one assembly — slab, frame, hinges, lock, threshold and glazing approved together. In Monroe County the part that fails first is almost never the part that was chosen carefully.
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.
Highest
Monroe carries the highest design wind speeds in Florida
Not HVHZ
And it is governed by statewide approval, not a Miami-Dade NOA
One road
Everything arrives down US-1. We plan the job around that
Licensed
A licensed Florida general contractor
A good door with hardware that will not last five years
Entry doors get chosen on appearance and specified to a rating, and then the hinges, fixings and lock get selected on price because they are small line items. In a county where no building is far from salt water and there is no such thing as a sheltered elevation, those small items are the ones that seize, stain and fail. The door still holds its rating on paper while becoming steadily harder to operate, and a door that is hard to operate is a door that ends up propped.
What deserves specifying rather than defaulting
- Hinge material and finish, which is a corrosion decision here.
- Fixings and anchors, including what they are being driven into.
- Lock and multipoint gear that will still run in five years.
- Threshold and sill pan detail, formed rather than sealed.
- Finish system on the frame, chosen for exposure not for cost.
Why there is no low-exposure option here
On the mainland a contractor can reasonably specify one way for a waterfront property and another for a house a few miles inland. In Monroe County the second category does not exist. Every building is close to salt water, and salt-laden air is a continuous condition rather than an occasional one.
That removes an entire cost-saving decision from the job. It is not possible to specify down on corrosion here and expect to get away with it, which is worth understanding when comparing a Keys quote against one from further north.
How we handle it
- 01Specify the whole assembly including the parts nobody asks about.
- 02Make sure any sidelight or transom is covered by that same approval document.
- 03Form and flash the pan before the frame goes into the opening.
- 04Leave a door that latches cleanly and will keep doing so.
The corrosion specification is the part of a Keys entry door that separates a twenty-year installation from a five-year one, and it is invisible at the quote. It is also where a cheaper number usually comes from when two quotes look otherwise similar. Ask both contractors what hardware they are pricing.
Said plainly
Where we stop
Hardware outside the approval is not something we will fit, including upgraded corrosion-resistant gear that the approval does not name. Where a client wants a specific product that falls outside it, that is a fair choice openly made — it simply changes what we can certify.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can I keep the existing frame?
- Almost never, and in this county the frame is frequently the reason the door needs replacing at all. The approval covers the assembly, and the anchoring into the structure is a specified part of it.
- Is stainless hardware worth the extra?
- In Monroe County the corrosion specification is the difference between a door that works in year ten and one that has been fighting you since year four. It has to be hardware the approval names, but yes, this is the wrong place to save money.
- Do sidelights need rating too?
- Yes. Those are glazed openings sitting in the very same wall. Rating the door and leaving unrated decorative glass beside it protects very little and will not pass inspection.
Florida Keys specifics
Highest Wind, Lower Tier
The High Velocity Hurricane Zone covers Miami-Dade and Broward. Monroe County is not in it, and carries higher design wind speeds than either. The strictest test protocol does not apply where the numbers are hardest.
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One Road In
Every material used in Monroe County arrives along one road. There is no second route, no nearby branch to run back to, and no way to absorb a mistake by sending somebody tomorrow.
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There Is No Inland
In every other Florida market a buyer can move inland and pay less. In Monroe County that option does not exist. Every property is coastal, so the specification decisions that are optional elsewhere are not optional here.
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Up on Piers
A great deal of Keys housing has its living floor raised on piers or columns. That raises height above grade, which raises the calculated pressure, and it turns straightforward access into a planning problem.
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How We Work Here
We are based in Fort Lauderdale and the Keys are a long way down a single road. We work the county in planned blocks with crews lodged locally, and that has consequences worth stating up front.
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More what we install
Impact Windows
The main event. Monroe carries the state's highest design wind speeds while sitting outside the stricter approval regime, so every bit of the weight lands on getting the calculation right.
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Sliding Glass Doors
Keys sliders tend to be wide, they face open water, and on a great many houses they open onto a deck a full story above the ground. Every one of those raises the number the unit has to hold.
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Impact Garage Doors
A double garage door is the largest opening in most houses. In the Keys it frequently sits at the ground level of an elevated structure, which changes what it is doing and what rules apply to it.
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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.