Broward specifics · Older Housing Stock
What You Find Behind the Stucco
A great deal of Broward housing predates the code changes that followed 1992. On those buildings the window is the easy part; what the window is fixed into decides the job.
Give us the address and a rough count of openings. We will tell you what the design pressures are before anyone quotes you a price.
HVHZ
Broward is inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone
NOA
Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance is the approval that governs here
Our crews
We measure, we schedule, and our own people install
Licensed
A licensed Florida general contractor
The quote assumes the substrate is sound
Most quotes are written on the assumption that the new unit anchors into what is already there. On older Broward houses that assumption fails often enough to matter — timber bucks that have taken water for decades, hollow block with degraded cells at the opening, previous replacements fitted into the previous replacement. None of it is visible until the old window is out, and all of it changes the anchoring.
What we look for before quoting
- Buck material and condition, and whether it is original.
- Evidence of previous replacement and how it was anchored.
- Water staining at sills and the interior below them.
- Whether openings were modified at some point without documentation.
- Stucco condition at the perimeter, which decides making good.
Why the 1990s matter here
South Florida building requirements changed materially after 1992, and Broward has a lot of housing on both sides of that line. On the older stock, the original window openings were not detailed for the anchoring an HVHZ product now requires, which is why a replacement is frequently a substrate job with a window in it rather than the other way round.
That is not a reason to avoid the work — those are exactly the houses that benefit most. It is a reason to expect a properly investigated quote rather than a price per opening off a plan.
How we handle it
- 01Inspect and probe rather than measuring and assuming.
- 02Price buck replacement as a contingency where the risk is real.
- 03Anchor into sound substrate, replacing it where it is not.
- 04Make good stucco and interior finishes ourselves.
We probe at the measure and tell you where we think we will find trouble. On a house of a certain age the honest position is that some openings will need the buck replaced, and it is better to carry that as a stated contingency than to discover it mid-job and have a conversation about extras with the wall open.
Said plainly
Where we stop
We cannot see through stucco. What we can do is tell you which openings look likely, price the contingency openly and not treat a discovery as a windfall.
FAQ
Common questions
- Will you know before you start?
- Partly. We probe and we can usually tell you which openings are likely. Certainty comes when the old unit is out, which is why the contingency is stated rather than hidden.
- Does buck replacement change the price a lot?
- It changes it per opening rather than across the job. On a house where two or three openings need it, the effect is manageable. On one where most do, it is a different job and you should be told that at the quote.
- Is it still worth doing on an older house?
- Usually more worth it, not less. Older stock is where the existing openings perform worst, so the improvement is larger — provided the substrate work is done rather than skipped.
What we install
Impact Windows
The core product, and the one most often quoted wrong. What matters is not the brand on the sticker but whether that exact unit holds an NOA for the pressure your specific opening has to resist.
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Sliding Glass Doors
The widest opening in the house, usually facing the water, usually carrying the highest design pressure on the elevation. It is also the one most likely to have been under-specified.
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Entry Doors
An entry door is a small opening carrying a large expectation. On a luxury elevation it is also the piece everyone looks at, which makes the trade-off between approval and appearance sharper here than anywhere else on the house.
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Garage Doors
On most houses the garage door is the single largest opening in the envelope, and the one whose failure does the most damage. It is also the one most often left out of an impact upgrade.
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French & Specialty Openings
Arched heads, French pairs, fixed picture units, corner glazing. These are the openings that give a house its character, and the ones where approval and appearance argue with each other most.
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Impact Glass Retrofit
Replacing the glazing while keeping the existing frames. On the right building it saves real money and real disruption. On the wrong one it produces something that is not approved and cannot be made so.
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More broward specifics
Broward Is HVHZ
Miami-Dade and Broward are the only counties inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone. It is a genuinely different approval regime, and it is the single fact that should shape a Broward quote.
Read more →
Design Pressure
Design pressure is calculated per opening from the building, the site and the unit. It is the number that decides what may legally go in the hole, and most homeowners are never shown it.
Read more →
Waterfront & Exposure
Broward is cut through with waterway. A house on the Intracoastal, a finger canal or the ocean carries higher design pressures and a corrosion problem the inland houses do not have.
Read more →
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.