Roofing in Oakland Park, FL

What is on the roofs in Oakland Park

Oakland Park's houses come in three layers. A small core dates to the 1920s boom, when South Florida builders favored Mediterranean Revival details like barrel tile roofs. After wartime limits on building materials lifted in 1946, farmland near the core became 1950s subdivisions such as Coral Woods and Coral Terrace. The largest wave came between 1960 and 1980, when annexations like the 700-acre Twin Lakes subdivision doubled the city and its population roughly quadrupled, so many roofs here sit on houses from the 1960s and 1970s.⁵

Local rules and history that affect your roof

• Oakland Park began inside Floranada, a Florida-Canada resort city incorporated in 1925. After the 1926 hurricane and the end of the land boom, its backers pulled out; Floranada was dissolved and Oakland Park incorporated in its place on July 1, 1929.^5,6
• When building-material restrictions ended in 1946, the city was flooded with permit applications, and that rush is what prompted Oakland Park to adopt its first building code.⁵
• Coral Park Properties built Coral Woods in the eastern part of the city in the mid-1950s, and Coral Terrace, north of it, was being prepared by 1957.⁵
• In the early 1960s the city annexed about a square mile to its northwest, then Sleepy River Acres and the 700-acre Twin Lakes subdivision, which doubled its size; Harlem-McBride, to the west, was annexed at the end of the decade.⁵
• Homeowners can pull their own permits under the state owner-builder exemption, but the city says that works best for small jobs like slabs, fences and walkways. The permit holder schedules each inspection.¹

Storms that hit here

• 1926 Miami Hurricane (1926). The September 1926 hurricane brought devastation to Oakland Park, then part of Floranada. It destroyed homes, including the Hall family's, and the Methodist congregation's church, and the town's finances kept sliding until Floranada was dissolved in 1929.⁵

What this means for a re-roof in Oakland Park

How old the houses are. The median home in Oakland Park was built in 1972; 89.2% of its 19,114 homes predate 2000 and 6.2% were built in 2010 or later. So most houses here went up before Florida’s first statewide building code took effect on March 1, 2002.^4,7,8,9

Pre-2002 wood-deck houses. When the old covering comes off, the deck gets re-nailed to current code and a secondary water barrier goes on; in the wind-borne debris region, insured homes of $300,000+ may also need roof-to-wall connections (capped at 15% of the re-roof cost).^7,8,9

Repair or replace. Replacing 25% or more of a roof section in 12 months generally means redoing the section to current code — unless that roof was built or replaced under the 2007 code or later.^8,9,10,11

Product approval. In the HVHZ every roofing component needs a current product approval — a Miami-Dade NOA or a Florida approval listed for HVHZ use. Ask for the numbers and look them up yourself.^10,12

Roof age and insurance. An insurer can’t refuse a policy just because the roof is under 15 years old. If it is 15 or older, you can get an inspection first; at least 5 years of remaining life means age alone isn’t grounds to refuse.¹³