What we install · Entry Doors
The Door Is Rated. The Frame Is What Fails.
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.
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
A rated slab in an unrated frame
Impact approval is granted to an assembly — slab, frame, hardware and anchoring together — not to the door leaf on its own. Replacing a slab into an existing frame, or fitting a rated slab with a decorative frame that carries no approval, produces a door that looks compliant and is not. This is the most common thing we find when we are asked to look at somebody else's work on a front entrance.
What the approval actually covers
- The complete assembly, including sidelights and transoms if present.
- The frame and its anchoring into the substrate.
- The hardware, including multipoint locking where the approval requires it.
- Glass area and its position within the slab.
- Swing direction and whether the unit is inswing or outswing.
Why the front door is the hardest compromise
Everywhere else on the house, the approved product and the attractive product are usually the same thing. At the entrance they diverge. The looks people want at this price point — very wide leaves, slim frames, large or unusual glass — are exactly the features that make an assembly harder to approve at HVHZ pressures.
There is no trick that resolves it. What there is, is a real range of approved assemblies that are far better looking than most people expect, and a clear answer about which compromises buy the most appearance for the least deviation.
How we handle it
- 01Replace the assembly, not just the slab.
- 02Confirm sidelights and transoms are covered by the same approval.
- 03Anchor to the substrate the approval specifies.
- 04Make good the threshold, the interior casing and the exterior finish.
We replace the whole assembly. Where a client wants a particular look — a wide stile, a specific glass treatment, an oversized single leaf — we check that a version of it holds an approval at the pressure the opening needs before it is designed in, rather than discovering the conflict after a deposit. On the elevations where this matters most, that conversation happens at the measure.
Said plainly
Where we stop
A genuinely bespoke joinery door will not carry an impact approval. Where a client wants one, the honest options are a rated assembly that looks close, or an unrated door with the exposure accepted deliberately. We will lay out both rather than pretend the first is the second.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can I keep my existing frame and just change the door?
- Not if you want the assembly to be approved. The approval covers frame, slab, hardware and anchoring as one unit, so a rated slab in an old frame is not a rated door however good the slab is.
- Do sidelights and transoms need approving too?
- Yes, and they are frequently missed. If they are part of the opening they are part of the assembly, and an approval covering only the centre leaf does not cover them.
- Will a multipoint lock be required?
- Often, depending on the assembly. It is specified by the approval rather than by preference, and it is one of the details that separates a compliant installation from one that merely looks right.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Older Housing Stock
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.
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How We Work Here
Most of this trade sells the job and subcontracts the installation. We do not. On a house where the finish matters, that is the whole difference.
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More 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.
Read more →
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.
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.