Roofing in Miami Beach, FL

What is on the roofs in Miami Beach

Miami Beach's older houses and small apartment buildings span three building eras, and the city's own designation reports describe their roofs. Mediterranean Revival buildings, common from the mid-1910s to the early 1930s, have low-pitched terra cotta and Cuban tile roofs, often with tile-capped parapets; Mission Revival buildings often have flat roofs behind curved parapets drained by scuppers. The Art Deco era (the city counts more than 800 properties from 1923 to 1943) produced Med/Deco hybrids with clean stepped rooflines, some with sloped barrel tile. Post-war MiMo buildings, mostly in Mid and North Beach, have flat roofs with projecting eaves.^6,7,8,9

Local rules and history that affect your roof

• Miami Beach has 14 local historic districts. Changes to a building inside one, whether it is classed as contributing or not, are reviewed against the Certificate of Appropriateness criteria and may need Historic Preservation Board approval; Planning staff can issue some COAs instead of the Board.^10,11
• On May 14, 1979, the Miami Beach Architectural District became the first urban 20th-century historic district on the National Register. Today the city's historic districts hold more than 2,600 buildings, about 70% of them contributing, and more than 800 Art Deco properties built between 1923 and 1943.^9,12
• Under Florida Statute 553.844, re-roofing a site-built single-family house brings wind-mitigation work: a strengthened roof deck attachment, a secondary water barrier and, where the insured value (or just value) is $300,000 or more, roof-to-wall connection retrofits. The city's roofing requirements sheet (revised April 2019, citing the 2017 code) applies this only to sloped hip and gable roofs, so flat roofs, townhouses, duplexes, condos and apartment buildings are exempt. It sets the required roof-to-wall spend at 15% of the re-roof cost: on a $10,000 roof, $1,500.^2,13
• Miami Beach adds a local step: a Florida-licensed engineer or architect must assess the job and certify, with photos of each item, the re-nailing of the sheathing, the secondary water barrier and the roof-to-wall connections, and a special inspector form is filed with the roof application.²
• The city's roofing requirements sheet adds that if roof-to-wall strapping costs 50% or more of the re-roof, the owner must sign separate contracts with the roofing contractor and the building contractor, and the two may not subcontract to each other.²

Storms that hit here

• Great Miami Hurricane (1926). A roughly 10-foot storm surge came onto Miami Beach and the barrier islands on the morning of September 18, 1926, and at its height water ran all the way across the island and Biscayne Bay into Miami.¹⁴
• Irma (2017). At Government Cut, at the south tip of Miami Beach, an instrument 23 meters up recorded sustained hurricane-force winds of 65 knots (75 mph).¹⁵

What this means for a re-roof in Miami Beach

How old the houses are. The median home in Miami Beach was built in 1969; 85.3% of its 63,243 homes predate 2000 and 3.9% 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.^5,13,16,17

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).^13,16,17

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.^13,17,18,19

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.^18,20

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.²¹