Garage door installation in Pembroke Pines, sized to Broward's wind code

What you choose, and what Broward chooses for you

In Pembroke Pines the impact rating isn't an upgrade. Florida’s building code, Section 1626, requires doors in the HVHZ to pass the large-missile test, a 2×4 weighing 9 lb shot at 50 ft/s, or to sit behind a shutter that passes it. Every door we quote is impact-rated and carries an approval that names the HVHZ; what sits inside that rating is laid out on impact garage doors.

The wind pressure a door must resist changes with the door's size and with the house. Broward's voluntary chart, part of the city's permit packet, puts a 16×7 door at +37.0 / −45.0 psf in the worst case, and the plan for your home can set its own figure. The full chart is in our Pembroke Pines permit guide. Past that, the choices are yours:

• Windows in the door. The glass has to be listed as impact-resistant in the door's approval. Some models are approved with impact glass and not with plain glass, so the label and the glass have to agree.
• Insulation. An insulated door keeps a garage that faces the afternoon sun from turning into an oven, and it runs quieter. It also adds weight for the spring to carry.
• Design and color. Flush, ribbed or raised panels, a carriage look, woodgrain or solid colors. If an association governs your street, its design rules come first, and we bring the options it allows.

The steps, in the order the city expects

1. Measure. Opening width and height, clearance overhead, side room for the tracks, the state of the wood or concrete around the opening, plus a picture of any label on the old door.
2. Pick the door and check its approval. Before you sign, you see the approval number, whether it covers the HVHZ, its expiration date, and the pressure it's rated for next to the one your opening needs.
3. HOA review. With an association, we prepare what its design committee requires. A 2026 state law stops it from asking for the building permit first.
4. Permit. The application goes in through the Development Hub, the city's online portal, with the plans, the product approval and the HOA affidavit, and it passes through structural review.
5. Install day. We take out the old door and haul it off, anchor the new tracks, hang the sections with their struts, wind the spring, and set the opener to the heavier door.
6. Attachment inspection. Before any trim covers the fasteners, a city inspector checks the anchors and the shims. You, or someone you name, and the installer have to be there.
7. Final inspection. With the trim done and the garage cleaned up, the inspector signs off. The permit card, the plans and the approvals must be on site, printed.

City inspections run Monday through Thursday. Every paper in the file is listed in our garage door permit guide.

Your HOA, and the 2026 change in state law

Get the HOA's design approval first; the permit can follow. Florida's HB 803, in force from July 1, 2026, added paragraph (1)(c) to section 720.3035: an association or its architectural committee may no longer make a building permit a condition of reviewing your project. Asking the HOA first also spares you a permit for a door it later turns down.

The city has its own HOA paper. Its permit checklist asks every applicant for a Homeowners Association Affidavit of Awareness, even when the house isn't in an association. Associations often limit colors and panel styles, so ask for the approved list before you settle on a door.

Why an impact door changes the spring and the opener

An impact-rated door weighs more than the unrated door it usually replaces, because of its struts, heavier track and reinforced sections. Torsion springs are wound for one door's weight, so the old ones don't carry over: the replacement spring is calculated for the new door, and when the balance is right, the door holds still halfway open.

The opener gets checked as well. It has to lift the extra weight, its travel limits and force are reset to suit the heavier door, and the bracket that holds it needs solid framing behind it. If yours is too old or too weak for the job, you'll hear it before install day. A battery backup is a good idea here, since Irma and Wilma left much of the city without power for days, but Florida doesn't require one.

What changes the job

Opening size

A wider or taller door takes more struts and a heavier spring, and every size has its own design pressure to meet.

Glass in the sections

Impact-rated windows add weight and leave fewer approved models to choose from.

Whether the opener stays

A sound opener that can lift the new door stays; one that can't is replaced, and the quote says which case you're in.

The wall around the opening

Rotted wood or cracked concrete at the jambs has to be fixed before the tracks are anchored. Broward lets a Florida engineer change the fastening an approval shows, with a signed and sealed letter or drawing, when the wall calls for it.