Different From the Atlantic Side

Florida is not one wind environment. Design wind speeds, exposure categories and product approval regimes differ across the state, and a specification carried over from another region may be either over-specified for the cost or under-specified for the exposure.

Exposure is not only about distance from the water. A house on an open lot with nothing upwind faces higher pressures than one of the same size in a mature neighbourhood with tree cover and surrounding structures, and the calculation accounts for that. Two neighboring properties can have genuinely different requirements.

Salt accelerates corrosion in every metal component on a roof: fasteners, flashings, drip edge, vents, and the fixings holding tile down. On an inland roof those components generally outlast the covering. Near the Gulf they frequently do not.

It is why a coastal roof should be specified with corrosion resistance in mind throughout, including the components nobody sees, and why reusing existing flashings on a coastal re-roof is usually a false economy.

1. 01Specify to the local requirements rather than a general standard.
2. 02Select fixings appropriate to coastal exposure.
3. 03Confirm the approval path with the building department.
4. 04Attach to the required design pressures.

Pay attention to the fixings on a coastal roof. They are a small share of the cost, they are the first thing to corrode in salt air, and a roof held down by corroded fasteners is inadequately attached whatever the covering looks like.

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