Atlantic hurricane season runs June through November, and it peaks right now. A screen enclosure is one of the first parts of a home to fail in high wind — and when the aluminum cage lets go, it can take the roof fascia and pool cage anchors with it. Here is what the code requires, and how to know if yours measures up.
Your screen enclosure must be engineered for your county's design wind speed — roughly 130 MPH around Orlando, higher near the coast. If your cage has no permit or engineering on file, shows bowed uprights, or has corroded anchors at the base, have a licensed PE evaluate it before the next named storm, not after.
A screen enclosure looks light and harmless, but in a windstorm it behaves like a sail. Wind pushes and pulls on thousands of square feet of mesh and aluminum, and all of that load has to travel down through the frame, into the connections, and out through the anchors into the concrete. If any link in that load path is weak — a self-tapping screw that has backed out, an anchor bolt eaten by corrosion, an upright that is one size too thin — the whole structure can unzip in seconds.
The damage rarely stops at the cage. A failing enclosure attached to the house can rip off roof fascia, tear out the wall anchors, and turn aluminum members into windborne debris that breaks windows. That is exactly what the Florida Building Code is written to prevent.
Florida sits in the highest wind-hazard region in the country. The Florida Building Code adopts ASCE 7-22, which assigns every address an ultimate design wind speed. Your enclosure — posts, beams, connections, and footings — must be designed to resist the pressures generated at that speed. These are the approximate ultimate design wind speeds for common counties:
| County | Design Wind (Vult) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Orange (Orlando) | 130 MPH | Inland, Exposure B |
| Osceola (Kissimmee) | 130 MPH | Inland, Exposure B |
| Polk | 130 MPH | Inland |
| Hillsborough (Tampa) | 130–140 MPH | Bay exposure raises it |
| Lee (Fort Myers) | 155 MPH | Gulf coast |
| Broward | 170 MPH (HVHZ) | NOA products required |
| Miami-Dade | 185 MPH (HVHZ) | NOA products required |
After a storm, many homeowners just replace the torn mesh and move on. But if the frame flexed, anchors pulled, or fasteners loosened, the load path is compromised — and new screen on a weakened frame will fail again in the next storm. Mesh is cosmetic; the aluminum and its anchors are what keep you safe.
Re-screening the mesh alone generally does not require a permit. But once you touch the structure — replacing bent members, re-anchoring the base, reinforcing connections, or expanding the enclosure — most Florida counties require a permit and PE-stamped drawings, because you are restoring the system that resists wind. Doing structural repairs without a permit can create the same after-the-fact problems as building without one: fines, insurance denial, and trouble at resale.
A licensed Professional Engineer can inspect the as-built enclosure, compare it to your county's current wind requirements, and tell you plainly whether it complies. If it does, you get documentation for your records and your insurer. If it does not, you get a sealed set of repair or reinforcement drawings that bring it up to code — the same drawings your contractor needs to pull a permit.
Send us photos and your county — a Florida PE will tell you whether it meets current wind code, and what it takes to fix it if it doesn't.
Screen Enclosure Engineering →It depends on your county. The code sets ultimate design wind speeds under ASCE 7-22 — around 130 MPH in Orlando and Kissimmee, 140–160 MPH along the Gulf and southwest coast, and up to 170–185 MPH in Broward and Miami-Dade. Your enclosure must be engineered for the speed at your specific address.
Re-screening the mesh alone usually does not require a permit. But if the aluminum frame, fasteners, or footings are damaged, repairing the structure typically requires a permit and PE-stamped drawings, because you are restoring the load path that resists wind.
Not necessarily. Surviving a storm at 90 MPH tells you nothing about how it will perform at the 130+ MPH the code actually requires. Each storm can also loosen fasteners and fatigue connections, so a cage that held once may be weaker than it looks. An evaluation measures it against the code, not against luck.