Is Your Pool Cage Hurricane-Code Compliant? Pre-2002 vs. Post-2002 Framing
Florida adopted its first unified statewide Building Code in 2002, following Hurricane Andrew (1992) and years of code that varied by county before that. A Casselberry pool cage built before 2002 — and Casselberry's oldest verified neighborhood, Lake Kathryn Park, has homes from 1946, nearly eight decades before the current 2023 Florida Building Code, 8th Edition — was very likely engineered to whatever local standard applied at the time, not the current unified code. That does not automatically make it non-compliant or unsafe; it means a like-for-like rescreen on an unaltered frame is a different question from a structural rebuild, which would trigger current code.
A correction, since a competitor gets this wrong
Seminole County is not in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone. The HVHZ is a specific Florida Building Code designation covering Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Seminole County does not carry it. If a screen contractor's website tells you your Casselberry cage has to meet HVHZ requirements, that is a reason to doubt the rest of the page, not a reason to pay more.
What Seminole County does publish are its own ultimate design wind speed designations, relevant to structural work and rebuilds rather than to a rescreen:
| Risk category | Speed | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Risk Category I | 129 mph | Figure 1609C |
| Risk Category II | 139 mph | Figure 1609A |
| Risk Category III & IV | 149 mph | Figure 1609B |
Source: Seminole County ultimate design wind speed designations — https://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/docs/default-source/pdf/sc_windspeeddesignations.pdf
Which risk category applies to a screen enclosure
Screen enclosures are normally designed as Risk Category I structures, which would make 129 mph the applicable figure here. That was not confirmed against the code text in research — see the same open item on the permit guide.
Not sure which of these is your problem?
Describe what you're seeing — a couple of photos helps — and I can usually tell you over the phone.