Roofing in Stuart, FL

What is on the roofs in Stuart

Stuart's oldest houses are downtown and along the St. Lucie River: wood-frame vernacular homes from the 1890s to the 1910s with steep gable or hip roofs, 1920s bungalows with low-pitched roofs and wide eaves, and a few Mediterranean and Mission Revival buildings with flat roofs, parapets and red clay tile. The Owl House on Colorado Avenue has four gables facing the river, a layout its builder, a former sea captain, chose to ride out hurricane winds. In 2022–2023 the city updated its historic survey to add downtown buildings from 1940 to 1974.^7,8

Local rules and history that affect your roof

• Stuart was settled around 1870, went by the name Potsdam in the 1890s, incorporated as a town in 1914 and was chartered as a city in 1925. It is the Martin County seat and covers about 6.25 square miles.⁹
• Asked whether historic preservation dictates what owners can do, the city answers that it is essentially voluntary. The main rule is a 30- to 90-day waiting period before a historic building can be demolished, so the city can explore saving or moving it.^8,10
• If your house is locally designated as historic, the city says it may qualify for a ten-year property-tax exemption on the value of pre-approved improvements. A roof replacement planned with the city before work starts is the kind of project to ask about.¹⁰
• East Stuart began in 1913 as the Lincoln Park subdivision, Stuart's historically Black neighborhood; by 1916 the Lincoln Park Company had built more than fifty homes. The area, which also takes in Boggan's Subdivision (1914), McDonald's Addition (1915) and Ruff's Little Dixie Subdivision (1923), is now the East Stuart Historic District.¹¹

Storms that hit here

• Frances (2004). Frances came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane at the southern end of Hutchinson Island, the barrier island east of Stuart, on September 5, 2004, then moved slowly across the peninsula. A storm chaser at neighboring Sewall's Point recorded 962 mb of pressure, and an unofficial gust of about 108 mph was reported in Martin County.¹²
• Jeanne (2004). Three weeks later, Jeanne's 50-nautical-mile-wide eye crossed the coast at the same spot, the southern end of Hutchinson Island just east of Stuart, as a Category 3 hurricane with estimated winds near 120 mph. Hurricane-force winds covered the coast from near Cape Canaveral south to near Stuart.¹³

What this means for a re-roof in Stuart

How old the houses are. The median home in Stuart was built in 1982; 79.1% of its 10,577 homes predate 2000 and 6.1% 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.^6,14,15,16

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).^14,15,16

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.^15,16,17,18

Product approval. This area is outside the HVHZ, so roofing products need Florida Product Approval (an FL number you can look up at floridabuilding.org); a Miami-Dade NOA is not required.^{17,19,20,21,22}

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.²³