What we install · Impact Windows
Every Opening Has Its Own Number
The core product. What matters is not the brand but whether the specific unit is approved for the pressure your specific opening has to resist.
Your address and a list of openings. We will tell you what each one actually has to resist before anybody quotes a product.
Not HVHZ
Tampa Bay is outside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone
FL approval
Statewide Product Approval is the path here
Design pressure
Set by your address and your opening, not by a brand
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
One rating quoted for a whole house
Design pressure varies by opening. A large window on a corner at the second story faces a different load from a small one in a sheltered wall on the ground floor. A quote that gives one rating for the whole house has not calculated anything, and the units on the worst openings may be under-rated.
The commercial consequence is that quotes become impossible to compare. One contractor has calculated each opening and specified accordingly; another has picked a single product for the whole house. The second quote is lower, it looks like the same job, and it is not — and nothing in the paperwork makes that visible to a homeowner.
What decides the product
- The calculated design pressure for that specific opening.
- Florida Product Approval covering the size and configuration used.
- The installation method the approval actually requires.
- Substrate — whether the wall can take the specified anchors.
- Glass makeup, which affects performance and cost.
What the approval documentation actually says
A Florida Product Approval covers a specific product in specific sizes and configurations, tested to specific design pressures, installed by a specific method into a specific substrate. All four of those conditions have to hold for the installation to be what the approval describes.
It is worth asking to see the approval document for the units being proposed and checking that your largest opening falls within the sizes it covers. That is a five-minute check and it catches the most common specification error there is.
How we handle it
- 01Calculate design pressures per opening, not per house.
- 02Select products approved for the size and pressure used.
- 03Install to the approval's installation instructions exactly.
- 04Verify the substrate takes the specified anchoring.
- 05Provide the approval documentation for permitting.
Ask for the design pressure for each opening, in writing. A contractor who can produce that list has calculated the job; one who quotes a single figure for the house has not, and the difference shows up at inspection or in a storm.
Said plainly
Where we stop
A product approval covers specific sizes and configurations. A unit outside what the approval covers is not approved, however good the product is, and we will not install one.
FAQ
Common questions
- Does every window need the same rating?
- No. Design pressure varies by opening — size, height, position and exposure.
- Should we ask for per-opening pressures?
- Yes, in writing. It shows whether the job was actually calculated.
- Does the approval cover any size?
- No. It covers specific sizes and configurations, and outside them the product is not approved.
- Does the substrate matter?
- The anchoring in the approval assumes a substrate. It has to be verified.
Tampa Bay specifics
Tampa Bay Is Not HVHZ
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The Wind Zone
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Surge & Water
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Older Housing Stock
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How We Work Here
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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.