What we install · French & Specialty Shapes
One Road, One Delivery, No Second Attempt
Shaped and oversized units are fabricated for one opening in one house. In Monroe County they also have to travel the length of the Overseas Highway, which removes the tolerance for getting anything wrong.
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 remake that costs a week rather than an afternoon
Anywhere else, a specialty unit that arrives wrong is an annoyance — it goes back, it gets remade, a van brings the replacement. Here it is a remake plus a journey down more than forty bridges, scheduled against a crew that is not local and a delivery window that cannot simply be moved to tomorrow. The cost of a bad measurement is not the unit. It is the fortnight, and the second mobilization, and the hole in the wall in between.
How we take the risk out of a shaped unit
- Template rather than measure, on anything that is not rectangular.
- Check the template against the opening a second time before ordering.
- Confirm the approval covers that shape at that pressure.
- Sequence so a late unit does not leave the house open.
- Order shaped items first and simple ones around them.
Why the supply line changes the method
Everything that goes into a building in Monroe County arrives along one road. There is no alternative route, no nearby second supplier and no quick return to a branch for the piece that was missed. That single fact should shape how a contractor works here, and it frequently does not.
It is why our sequencing is deliberately conservative: order the slow items first, template rather than measure, and never leave the building open waiting on something that has to travel. Those are not preferences, they are what the geography imposes.
How we handle it
- 01Survey shaped openings separately, slowly, and twice.
- 02Place long-lead orders before touching any straightforward opening.
- 03Coordinate delivery to a single planned window, not a rolling one.
- 04Keep the building closed while anything is outstanding.
Measuring a shaped opening twice costs us an hour. Getting it wrong costs the client two weeks and costs us a return trip down the whole island chain. That arithmetic is why we template rather than measure, and it is the single practice that most separates a job that finishes on time here from one that does not.
Said plainly
Where we stop
There are shapes that no approved unit reproduces at a sensible price, and at Keys pressures that list is longer than it is on the mainland. The honest options then are squaring the opening off, which alters the elevation permanently, or commissioning true custom work at a considerably higher figure. We will cost both.
FAQ
Common questions
- What happens if a unit arrives wrong?
- It is remade and it travels again, and that is a fortnight rather than an afternoon. It is precisely why we template shaped openings and check them twice before ordering, rather than trusting a tape and a good memory.
- Are lead times worse in the Keys?
- Fabrication takes what it takes. What is different is the delivery leg and the fact that a slip cannot be absorbed by sending someone back tomorrow. We plan the sequence around that rather than hoping.
- Could I square off an arch instead?
- Sometimes, and it is a real option rather than a free one. It changes the elevation permanently and brings structural and stucco work above the opening into the job.
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 Entry Doors
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.
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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.