What we install · Glazing Into Existing Frames
The Cheaper Route, and Why Salt Usually Decides It
Where the existing frames are sound and an approval exists for glazing into them, changing only the glass is cheaper, faster and far less disruptive. On this coast the deciding factor is almost always corrosion rather than age.
Tell us the address and whether the house is occupied year round. On this coast the second answer changes the recommendation more than the first.
2004
Two landfalls, three weeks apart, on the same stretch of coast
Empty
Glass protects a house when nobody is there to close a shutter
Our crews
We measure, we schedule, and our own people install
Licensed
A licensed Florida general contractor
The option that goes unmentioned because it is the smaller sale
Retrofit does not suit every building, and the honest reason it is under-offered is not always technical — it is a smaller job than a full replacement. Here there is a second reason it gets skipped: assessing it properly means opening up and looking at fixings, which takes time on a survey. It is quicker to quote a full replacement than to find out whether a cheaper answer was available.
What decides it on a coastal building
- Whether the fixings holding the frame have corroded.
- Whether the material around those fixings is still sound.
- How close the elevation sits to open water, on both sides.
- Whether the existing drainage path still works or has been sealed over.
- Whether the frame system has an approval for glazing into it at all.
Where it comes up most here
The Treasure Coast has a substantial stock of low-rise condominium and apartment buildings along the river and the ocean, many built with aluminum frame systems that are still sound even though the glazing in them is original and unrated.
On those buildings retrofit is often the practical answer, and it carries a second advantage. The exterior changes very little, which makes it a much easier proposal to get past an association that has resisted a visible change across a whole elevation.
How we handle it
- 01Open up and assess before offering this as an option.
- 02Confirm an approval covers this glazing in this frame system.
- 03Reglaze, reseal and prove the drainage still runs.
- 04Give a mixed answer where the building is genuinely mixed.
On this coast the corrosion question decides it more often than anywhere else we work. A frame system that would be a straightforward retrofit candidate ten miles inland can be a full replacement on the island, and age alone will not tell you which — only looking will.
Said plainly
Where we stop
Retrofit is not a way of avoiding the cost of bad frames. Where salt has taken the fixings or the frames have gone out of square, this stops being the cheaper option and becomes the wrong one, and we will not offer it dressed up as a saving.
FAQ
Common questions
- Is retrofit worse than replacing the whole thing?
- Where the approval applies and the frames are genuinely sound, no — it is a narrower scope rather than a lower standard. Where the frames are not sound it is not a lesser option either, it is simply the wrong answer to the problem.
- Can part of my building retrofit and part replace?
- Yes, and on a building with elevations facing different amounts of weather that is usually what the survey concludes. Applying one approach uniformly across a non-uniform building wastes money at one end and cuts corners at the other.
- Will an association prefer this?
- Very often, because almost nothing visible changes. Where a board has already turned down a full replacement on appearance grounds, this is worth putting back to them as a different proposal rather than the same one again.
Treasure Coast specifics
The 2004 Rebuild
Frances and Jeanne came ashore at almost the same point on this coast three weeks apart in September 2004. The rebuilding that followed happened at speed, during a shortage, and it left a distinctive housing stock behind.
Read more →
A House Nobody Is In
Approved shutters meet the requirement and cost less. They also need somebody at the house to deploy them. On a coast where a large share of properties are empty through hurricane season, that single fact decides most of these jobs.
Read more →
Island & Lagoon
The barrier islands here are narrow, with ocean on one side and the Indian River Lagoon on the other. There is very little distance from water in any direction, and that shows up in the fixings long before it shows up in the frames.
Read more →
Three Counties, Three Rules
The Treasure Coast is one market to a buyer and three jurisdictions to a permit. Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River each run their own building department, and several municipalities inside them run their own on top of that.
Read more →
How We Work Here
We are based in Fort Lauderdale and the Treasure Coast is a real drive from us. We work it in scheduled blocks, and that has consequences worth stating before you call rather than after.
Read more →
More what we install
Impact Windows
The core product, and on this coast the argument for it is different from the one made further south. Here the deciding factor is usually not cost or code — it is whether anyone will be at the house when a storm is named.
Read more →
Sliding Glass Doors
Sliders here are large, they face water, and they have usually been sitting in salt air for decades. All three of those change what has to be checked before anything is ordered.
Read more →
Impact Entry Doors
An approved entry door is an assembly — slab, frame, hinges, lock, threshold and glazing approved together. On a seasonal property it is also the one opening that gets used all year by somebody who does not live there.
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.