Roofing in Pinellas County

The Census puts the county's median year built at 1977. Of all homes, 58.8% went up before 1980, 87.5% before 2000, and only 5.8% in 2010 or later. Florida's first statewide building code did not arrive until March 1, 2002, after Hurricane Andrew exposed the old patchwork of local codes, so nearly nine in ten houses here were framed and first roofed under the older rules.

That history surfaces the day the old roof comes off. On a wood deck, today's code adds nails wherever the original sheathing was held with staples or 6d nails, and puts a secondary water barrier under the new covering (R908.7). The Pinellas roof replacement page covers each step.

The housing mix shapes the work too. Single-family detached houses make up just 48% of units, another 30.1% sit in condo and apartment buildings of five or more units, and 9.0% are mobile homes. Owners occupy 69.5% of occupied homes. For condo buildings three habitable stories or taller, the roof heads Florida's reserve-study list; see commercial roofing in Pinellas.

Start with the address. Pinellas County Building Services issues roof permits for unincorporated areas, Palm Harbor, East Lake, Lealman and West Lealman among them, and for six municipalities that use the county office: Belleair Beach, Belleair Shore, Indian Rocks Beach, Kenneth City, Oldsmar and Safety Harbor.

Most other cities and towns run their own office, from St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Largo to Tarpon Springs, Gulfport and Treasure Island. Three arrangements are easy to miss: Belleair Bluffs moved permits and inspections from the county to SAFEbuilt on August 15, 2025; North Redington Beach contracts its permitting to SAFEbuilt; and the Town of Redington Shores runs Redington Beach's building department.

Dunedin also permits its own work, though our research could not fully check its page, so confirm forms with the city. Whatever the office, the code steps match: a re-roof needs a permit (FBC-B 105.1), skips plan review (107), and gets a sheathing or dry-in inspection followed by a roofing inspection (110.3).

A normal year brings 52.48 inches of rain at St. Petersburg and 53.62 inches at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (NOAA 1991-2020 normals), and about 62 to 63% of it falls from June through September.

For a roof, the bursts matter more than the totals. At Tampa, the nearest NOAA Atlas 14 point in our county data, a 10-year storm's heaviest five minutes fall at 9.61 inches an hour, and a 100-year storm leaves 11.3 inches in 24 hours. Milton's 20.40 inches near St. Petersburg and Hermine's 22.36 near Tarpon Springs both topped that 100-year daily depth, though a storm total can fall over more than one day.

All that water has to leave the roof somewhere, and the code wants every downspout to discharge at least 1 foot from the wall. The Pinellas gutters page sizes gutters to the local bursts.

Every city, town and large community here has its own page, built from its own Census numbers, permit office and storm notes. How they group:

• Largest: St. Petersburg, then Clearwater, the county seat, and Largo.
• Unincorporated, on the county permit office: Palm Harbor, East Lake, Lealman and West Lealman.
• Highest Helene surge readings: Madeira Beach and Clearwater Beach.
• Storm-rebuild packets on file: St. Pete Beach, Redington Shores and Largo.
• Historic districts: St. Petersburg, Tarpon Springs and Pass-a-Grille in St. Pete Beach.