What we install · Impact Windows
A Newer House Is Not Automatically a Protected One
The core product. In Collier and Lee the common situation is not an old house with old windows — it is a reasonably new house that was built fully compliant using shutters, with glazing that was never rated at all.
Tell us the address and whether the property has been repaired since 2022. That second answer decides whether this is a window job or something larger.
50%
The threshold that turns a repair into a compliance project
Wind
Impact glass is a wind product. We will not sell it as flood protection
Our crews
We measure, we schedule, and our own people install
Licensed
A licensed Florida general contractor
Compliant in 2006, and nobody has opened the box since
A house built here in the 2000s or 2010s satisfied the code, and for a great many of them the way it did that was a shutter package rather than rated glass. That was a legitimate choice by the builder and often a cheaper one. Two owners later, nobody remembers the decision. The current owner sees a modern house, assumes the windows are impact-rated because the house is not old, and has never counted the panels stacked in the garage against the number of openings in the building.
How to find out what you actually have
- Count the shutter panels and compare them to the number of openings.
- Look for an etched marking in a corner of the glass on a few units.
- Check whether the original permit package named glazing or shutters.
- Ask whether anything has been replaced since the house was built.
- Find out whether the panels have been deployed even once.
Why this pattern is so common in Collier and Lee
This is one of the fastest-growing parts of Florida and a very large share of its housing stock is comparatively recent. Rapid build-out at scale rewards the cheapest compliant path, and for years that path was frequently a shutter package supplied with the house.
The result is a regional stock of buildings that are modern, well built and genuinely code compliant, whose owners have never established which compliance route their own house took. It is a five-minute question and almost nobody has asked it.
How we handle it
- 01Establish what protection exists today before quoting anything new.
- 02Work out the calculated pressure for each opening at this address.
- 03Name the product approval against every unit on the schedule.
- 04Install, finish both faces of the opening, and leave the documents.
We start by finding out what the house already has, because on this coast the answer surprises people in both directions. Some owners discover they are less protected than they believed. Others discover a perfectly serviceable shutter package they had written off, which changes the job from replacing everything to glazing the openings that matter most.
Said plainly
Where we stop
Impact glass is rated against a specified missile and a specified pressure cycle. That is a real, tested standard and it is not invulnerability. A severe enough event exceeds every product on the market, and in this market that distinction is not academic.
FAQ
Common questions
- How can I tell if my glass is already impact rated?
- Rated units usually carry an etched marking in a corner of the glass, and laminated glass has a visible interlayer at the edge if you can see it. The most reliable route is the original permit package, which will say what was approved for the openings.
- If I have shutters, do I need glass as well?
- Not to satisfy the requirement. The reasons people change are convenience and the fact that shutters depend on somebody deploying them. If your panels are complete, in good order and you are here to put them up, you may not need us at all.
- Can I do part of the house?
- Yes, and if you are choosing, start with the large windward openings — those are the ones whose failure changes the loading on everything else. Just be clear that a partly protected envelope is doing less than it looks like it is.
Southwest Florida specifics
The 50% Rule
If the cost of repairs or improvements reaches half the structure's value, floodplain rules can require the entire building to be brought into current compliance — which may include elevating it. That is a different project from replacing windows.
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A Two-Year-Old Rebuild
Most Florida markets deal with old repair work of uncertain quality. Here the work is recent, and the problem is the opposite one: it has not had time to settle, and a share of the people who did it are no longer in the state.
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Wind Product, Water Market
Impact glazing is tested against a flying object and a pressure cycle. It is a wind product. In the parts of this region worst hit in 2022, the destroying force was water, and no window on the market addresses that.
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Newer Houses, Shutters
Much of this region's housing stock is recent and was fully code compliant when built — using shutters rather than rated glazing. Owners assume a newer house has protected openings. Often it has panels in the garage instead.
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How We Work Here
We are based in Fort Lauderdale and Southwest Florida is the other side of the state. We work it in planned blocks, which has consequences worth knowing before you call rather than after.
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More what we install
Sliding Glass Doors
On this coast the sliders open onto the lanai and they are the widest thing in the building. On a property that took water in 2022 they are also where the evidence of it is easiest to read.
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Impact Entry Doors
An approved entry door is a whole assembly — slab, frame, hinges, lock, threshold and any glazing — approved as one thing. On this coast the threshold detail matters more than most people expect.
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Impact Garage Doors
In most houses the double garage door is the widest opening in the whole envelope. In Collier and Lee it is also the one nearest the ground, which drags it into a conversation that has nothing to do with wind at all.
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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.