Roofing in Stuart, Florida

Close to half of the city's housing (46.3 percent) went up before 1980, and just 6.1 percent dates from 2010 or later. All of those older houses were framed and decked before Florida's first statewide building code replaced the local codes on March 1, 2002, a change the Legislature made after Hurricane Andrew exposed the old system.

That history comes due when the roof does. Once the old covering is off a house with a wood deck, the Florida Residential Code wants the deck fastened to its re-nailing table and a secondary water barrier laid before the new roof goes on (section R908.7). The Stuart roof replacement page walks through both steps.

Shared roofs are common here. Single-family detached houses are only 27.7 percent of its housing units, while 38.8 percent sit in buildings of 10 or more units, well over double Martin County's 14.8 percent. For a condominium building three habitable stories or taller, Florida law requires a structural integrity reserve study at least every 10 years, and the roof is the first item that study covers (section 718.112(2)(g)).

Ownership shapes who decides. About four in ten occupied homes here are rented, so many roof calls are made by landlords and associations rather than the people sleeping under them. Seasonal use matters too: 15.6 percent of all units are held for seasonal or occasional use, and a roof on an empty condo or cottage can leak through a summer storm with nobody there to see the stain.

The city's storm record is long. Wikipedia lists 19 hurricanes through Stuart from 1871 to 2005, with Frances and Jeanne both arriving in 2004 and Wilma a year later. National Hurricane Center reports keep adding entries: in 2016 Matthew brought a 53-knot gust and 2.45 inches of rain to Witham Field, and in 2020 the strongest sustained wind Isaias produced anywhere in southeast Florida, 42 knots, was measured at Stuart Beach.

Two more recent storms left marks nearby. Nicole's top sustained reading on its landfall coast in 2022, 54 knots, came from the House of Refuge station in Martin County, and Milton's tornado reports in October 2024 included roof damage near Port Salerno. FEMA has declared six major disasters for the county since 2016: Matthew, Irma, Dorian, Ian, Nicole and Milton.

Damage follows a pattern. FEMA's field teams found hips and ridges were the most common damage after Ian, on newer and older roofs alike, and a ridge vent torn loose leaves a long slot in the deck open to rain. After a named storm, start with the ridge line on a Stuart roof, then the flashing where walls, vents and pipes meet it.

The season runs June 1 through November 30 and peaks around September 10, so late winter and spring are the calm window to fix whatever last year's storms loosened.