Impact Windows in Lakewood Park, FL

Impact windows became a more urgent topic in Lakewood Park after October 9, 2024. That day, a tornado outbreak spawned by Hurricane Milton swept St. Lucie County, and an EF3 tornado killed six people in the Spanish Lakes neighborhood of Lakewood Park. Tornadoes throw debris from every direction, so the old habit of only covering the windows that face the ocean does not hold up. Homeowners here are asking how to protect the whole house.

Whole-house thinking

A storm can break the weakest opening on any side. When wind gets inside a house through a broken window or failed door, pressure pushes outward on the walls and up on the roof. The goal is to keep every opening closed:

• Impact windows on all sides, not just the front
• Impact entry and sliding doors
• An impact garage door, since it is the largest opening on most homes
• Shutters on any openings you are not replacing yet

Manufactured and older homes

Lakewood Park has site-built homes and, in some neighborhoods, manufactured homes. Walls on manufactured homes are built differently, and not every impact product or shutter can be anchored to them. We look at the wall structure first and recommend only what can be fastened correctly per its approval. For site-built block homes, the process is standard: inspect the buck, repair if needed, set and anchor the unit.

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Shutters as a quick step

If full replacement is more than you want to do at once, hurricane shutters can protect existing windows now. Accordion shutters stay in place and close in a minute or two per opening, which matters when a warning gives you little notice. Roll-down shutters with a motor can be closed from inside.

A growing community

Lakewood Park had 12,510 residents and 6,049 housing units in 2020, up about 10 percent in population from 2010. The homeowner vacancy rate was only 2.4 percent, meaning most homes are owner-occupied year round, and most owners plan to stay.

Permits

Lakewood Park is unincorporated St. Lucie County, so permits come from the county building department. We file with product approvals for each window, door or shutter and schedule inspections.

Picking the order of work

For a whole-house plan done in steps, we usually suggest the garage door and the largest glass doors first, then bedroom windows, then everything else. That order closes the biggest weak spots soonest. Keep in mind that replacing more than 25 percent of a home's glazing within 12 months requires impact protection on all replaced openings, which fits a plan built around impact glass.

Inside the estimate

You get a written list of every opening, the product for each one, its approval and the permit and inspection work included, so you can compare apples to apples.