Roofing in Boca Raton, Florida

Boca Raton's housing leans older than the county's: 43.6% of homes were built before 1980, against 33.5% across Palm Beach County, and the median home dates to 1983, three years older than the county's 1986 median. Only 10.5% went up in 2010 or later. Florida's first statewide building code took effect on March 1, 2002, after Hurricane Andrew exposed the old system of local codes.

For most Boca Raton houses, then, a re-roof is the moment the current code reaches the deck. Once the old covering is off a wood deck, the residential code calls for the deck's nailing to be upgraded and a secondary water barrier laid before the new roof (R908.7). The Boca Raton roof replacement page explains both.

The city also stacks its housing. 42.5% of its 49,128 housing units are in buildings with 10 or more units, against 25.1% countywide, which is more than the 41.7% that are detached houses. Those roofs belong to associations and building owners, and condominium buildings of three or more habitable stories carry a reserve-study duty that starts with the roof; the commercial roofing page for Boca Raton covers it.

Owners live in 65.7% of the city's occupied homes, under the county's 70.1%. The median resident is 46 years old and 24.6% are 65 or older, both close to county figures, and 9.5% of homes are held for seasonal or occasional use, the same share as the county. The insurer's roof-age questions come with every renewal; the roof inspection page for Boca Raton lays them out.

Hurricane Irma left the clearest local mark in the federal record. In 2017 a storm-tide sensor on the Intracoastal Waterway in Boca Raton read 3.05 feet (NAVD88), and NHC measured 2 to 4 feet of inundation above ground along the coast of northern Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Wind came in other years and other shapes. Dorian in 2019 stayed offshore while a storm surge watch ran from Deerfield Beach to Lantana. During Ian in 2022, preliminary reports put a tornado near Kings Point, about 3 miles west-southwest of Delray Beach, and NHC counted an EF-2 in the county that collapsed a house roof. Milton in 2024 sent a long-track EF-3 tornado from Wellington to Jupiter Farms, tearing roofs and blowing in impact windows.

Rain sets the routine. The nearest long-term NOAA station in our data, at West Palm Beach International Airport, records 61.75 inches in a normal year, and hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, peaking around September 10. A spring roof check and a look after every hard blow keep small problems small.