What we install · Glazing Into Existing Frames
Cheaper, Less Disruptive, and Usually Ruled Out by Corrosion
Where frames are sound and an approval exists, changing only the glass is cheaper and far less disruptive. In Monroe County it is also the option most often ruled out, and for a reason worth understanding.
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
The attractive answer that the survey keeps killing
Retrofit is genuinely appealing here. It avoids the frame, the anchoring, the stucco returns and most of the disruption, all of which are more expensive at the end of a long road. The difficulty is that the qualifying condition — sound frames with sound anchoring — is exactly what universal salt exposure erodes. So it is the option clients most want and the one that most often does not survive the inspection, which makes honesty about it more important rather than less.
What the survey is actually testing
- Whether the fixings holding the frame have corroded.
- Whether the material receiving them is still sound.
- Whether the frame will carry the added weight of laminated glass.
- Whether the drainage path still runs or was sealed in a repair.
- Whether an approval exists for that glazing in that system.
Why it is still worth asking about
The Keys carry a substantial stock of low-rise condominium and multi-unit buildings, some with aluminum frame systems that have held up better than the glazing sitting in them. Where that is genuinely the case, retrofit is a materially better answer than replacement.
It also changes almost nothing visible, which matters on a building where an association has resisted altering the appearance of an elevation. That makes it worth a proper assessment even in a county where it frequently does not qualify.
How we handle it
- 01Take a section apart and look properly before this is put on the table.
- 02Check that a published approval actually covers this glazing in this system.
- 03Reglaze, reseal, and prove the drainage runs afterwards.
- 04Give a per-elevation answer where the building is not uniform.
On a multi-unit building we usually end up with a split answer, and that is the right answer rather than a fudge. Elevations facing open water and elevations facing a sheltered side of the same building frequently do not survey the same, and pretending otherwise wastes money on one side and cuts corners on the other.
Said plainly
Where we stop
This is not a way around bad frames. Where salt has taken the fixings or the frames have gone out of square, retrofit stops being the cheaper option and becomes the wrong one. We will not offer it dressed up as a saving because a client would prefer to hear it.
FAQ
Common questions
- Is retrofit likely to work on my building?
- Less often here than on the mainland, and it is still worth checking. Corrosion of the fixings is what usually rules it out, and that is not something age alone predicts — only opening up and looking does.
- Is it a lower standard?
- Not where a published approval covers it and the existing frames are truly sound. It is a narrower scope rather than a weaker result. Where they are not sound it is not a compromise either, it is simply wrong.
- Can part of a building retrofit and part replace?
- Yes, and here that is usually what the survey concludes. Elevations facing open water and sheltered elevations of the same building often come back with different answers.
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.