Hurricane Impact Window & Door Installation

We’ve been working on a renovation on an older wooden frame house, located in Florida. The age and dampness of the locale caused rot, mold and a termite playground.

Installation of doors and windows, new siding

Quick steps: plans, obtain permit, new header + doors, inspection, close permit

We want to remove these old windows...three rotting wood frame, single pane windows that were damaged from water intrusion. There was also water damage to the plaster inside the house.  

In order to obtain the building permit, we needed to go to a draftsman and get drawings that showed the requirements for load bearing supports. In this case, we had three small windows in a wall, and we needed to cut into the supporting framework, and install a header. We also will be removing a supporting wall between the dining room and the kitchen, and will need a header there. We had the draftsman add drawings for a future deck.

The building department granted us the permit to install 22 windows and 6 doors, after bringing in the plans for their approval. This done, we got the permit and began to take action.  Each locality here has its own building department; there may be different requirements in place for each community.Once we had the permit in hand, our contractor was prepared to open up the back end of the house. First, Derek removed the siding on the exterior of the house, cut into the house, leaving support timbers to hold up the top of the building. He then installed the header in that space, before placing the center support.  The header distributes the weight across the span of the large opening they created.Then he began working to install one French door at a time.  We found termite damage, and had the need to reframe and add support for the doors. This work done, we treated the area chemically. These doors are hurricane impact rated; they have long strapping pieces that anchor the doors into the frame of the house. In this case, the strapping anchors the doors to the new header (below).Once the doors were in, a waterproof membrane was wrapped over the framing, and then concrete siding was installed.  There are a number of different waterproofing materials.  This house originally had tar-paper, while there are other newer materials on the market.By code, we cannot have doors opening out onto three vertical feet of air, so we will be removing the old deck and installing a new deck, one that will extend around to the new French doors. We put blue tape over the lock-set on each door, so that the doors cannot be opened, and then we called up the building inspector to approve the installation of the windows and doors, and to close out the permit.