Hurricane Impact Protection For Your Home & Family
Installed by My Safe Florida Contractors. License #12321.
ASP Windows & Doors has over 16 years of experience. Over 10,000 South Florida homes are protected by our installations.
We ensure every sliding patio door is measured and installed to your exact needs. We are committed to delivering excellence.
Need to protect your home? Try our impact sliding doors! Our impact doors are specifically designed for durability and security to protect your home from hurricanes and intruders. We also provide the right solution for commercial projects.
There are several important considerations when purchasing sliding glass patio doors for your home. Understanding the difference in quality with help a homeowner select the best option for them.
The first important characteristic has to do with the hardware found in any particular door. Less expensive sliding door options will feature alloys in the rolling mechanisms found at the bottom of the door. Alloys rust easily which could make opening and closing doors difficult after a few years. This is particularly the case when the home is located close to the ocean.
For this reason, higher quality coastal properties will use stainless steel hardware throughout the door to mitigate the damages caused by saltwater corrosion. Due to the added expense, doors with stainless steel rollers and locking mechanisms will cost more than sliding patio doors with alloys.
Beyond hardware, other characteristics can affect the performance of sliding glass doors. Doors constructed with thicker glass usually offer longer warranties and improved protection against florida storms.
In addition, structural reinforcements in the middle of the door improve the products ability to with stand higher wind loads. These reinforced doors are typically used in hi rises and condos which have higher code requirements.
Finally, sill risers are an important component that influences the overall ability of sliding doors to withstand high exterior and interior pressure. They can come up as much as 4″ and help protect the home from sideways wind driven rain that can pool inside the track as well as strengthen the door frame.
Thickness: There are different glass thickness options as well as glass treatments available for sliding glass doors. For standard size glass panels, 7/16″ HS glass is the less expensive option found with basic products. A higher quality product or oversized panels will have 9/16″ SGP glass as standard.
Insulation: In order to cool the home from the heat gain natural light brings, the glass can be insulated impact helping block the transfer of heat and help reduce noise transfer as well.
Tinting: To further reduce heat gain and improve energy efficiency, a treatment like LoE 366 or a tint can be applied to the glass as well. Apart from the extra security sliding patio impact doors can provide, energy efficient improvements are an important benefit to consider when choosing the features of your sliding doors.
ES windows, one of the largest window companies in the world located in Colombia, has many different approvals for sliding glass doors with the most glass options available. Whether you need a basic product or a high-end one or you live in a condominium 100 floors up, they have a product for you.
Their glass manufacturing company, Technoglass, is one of the first fabricators of laminated impact glass to supply the Florida market.
Marvin’s Costal Line of impact sliding doors are high quality with stainless steel components and thick extrusions. Their standard impact sliding glass door has 9/16″ SGP regardless of size.
ECO makes a residential line of affordable impact sliding doors that are a great balance of value and quality. They fit most budgets and have their own glass fabrication facility They are now owned by PGT.
There are several important variations of design for impact sliding doors. Below are some of the most important ones.
For some homes that have a patio opening that requires 3 to 5 panels, a possible solution is a stackable sliding door. This door configuration allows you to put all the panels to one side, giving a large opening with more uninterrupted views of the back yard.
You can also have the doors split in the middle if they are 4 panels or more. In fact, this is a necessary configuration for most homes because stacking more than 3 panels to one side requires the header to be at least 12″ in width to accommodate the track.
Equal split panel configurations are also very expandable. For several manufacturers, up to eight panels can be stacked on each side making a 16 panel sliding glass door solution if the project requires it!
For some properties, the homeowner wants to hide the door in an internal or external pocket in order to make the opening bigger. Retro fitting a pocket sliding glass door with the impact sliding glass door version is often very difficult and expensive.
Typically, the existing pocket is not wide enough which means it has to be reconstructed to fit the new patio door.
An external pocket sliding glass door often requires a modification of the exterior to ensure it is installed correctly and will pass codes.
Bifold doors are the most pricey but best solution for opening up the home to uninterrupted views. Learn more about bifold doors.
Vanessa Mejia
Thìnhđy Ngo
Julie Ruzycki
Marlene Nieto
General Contractor #CGC1513274
Qualified Business License, QB54075
My Safe Florida Contractor License, #12321
ASP Windows is one of South Florida’s premier impact windows, impact doors, impact glass, and hurricane protection contractor. We specialize in retrofit and new construction installations of residential, commercial, and high-rise projects.
