Port Orange Glass · Port Orange, Ponce Inlet & South Daytona, FL
Half this job needs no state license at all. Knowing which half is the whole trick.
Call (386) 387-3973Florida stopped licensing glass work as its own category in 2012, when the legislature removed Certified Glass and Glazing Contractor from the mandatory state license types. So replacing the glass in an existing frame requires no state contractor certification — anyone may do it.
Taking the window out is different work under different rules. Installing windows and doors, storefront framing and structurally anchored opening protection needs a Division I contractor or an appropriate specialty license, and your city or county may want a local license as well.
In a subdivision house that distinction is not academic, it is the whole quote. Fogged sealed units are glass work — no permit, no contractor license, a fraction of the price. Replacing the windows is permitted construction with a wind-load requirement. Both are legitimate businesses and they are not the same business, and a company that only does the second has no reason to tell you the first exists. Ask which one you are being sold, and for replacement work ask for the license number and check it at the state license search.
First: which job is this? Glass into an existing frame, or the whole window out? On a Port Orange house the answer is genuinely uncertain until someone looks, because a fogged unit and a failed frame present identically from the curb. Everything else depends on this answer, so make them give it.
Second: the license, for the parts that need one. Ask for the number and run it through the state search yourself. A card in a photograph proves nothing; the search is free.
Third: insurance, direct from the insurer. General liability, plus workers' compensation if anybody besides the owner will be on site. Ask for the certificate to come from the insurance company rather than forwarded by the contractor — forwarded documents are the ones that turn out to have lapsed.
Fourth: the permit. If you are told a window replacement needs none, that is a mistake or a plan, and both leave you with an unpermitted alteration that surfaces when you sell.
A firm price before anyone measured anything. A large deposit for work with no date attached. A price that expires this evening. The words hurricane-proof or unbreakable. Refusal to write down the license number, the permit responsibility or what the warranty covers.
And one that belongs specifically to this page: a company that answers "your windows are fogged" with a quote for new windows and never mentions that the sealed unit alone can often be replaced. That is not necessarily dishonesty — plenty of firms only do replacements and genuinely do not offer the other thing. But you should hear it as "this company does one product", and get a second opinion from somebody who does both before you spend the difference.
Generally no. Florida removed Certified Glass and Glazing Contractor from its mandatory license types in 2012, and replacing glass within an existing frame is non-structural glass work. Your city or county may have a local licensing requirement, which is worth a question. Taking the window out as a unit is what changes the answer.
Usually neither. Almost every enormous gap on this kind of job is one company pricing new sealed units into your existing frames and another pricing complete new windows. Both are honest answers to different questions. Establish which each of them is quoting before you compare the numbers at all.
Quite possibly, and it is cheaper to find out now. Many Port Orange subdivisions have rules covering anything that changes the appearance of the exterior, which can include frame color and glass tint. Replacing a sealed unit behind an unchanged frame rarely troubles anybody; replacing whole windows can need approval before the order goes in.
No requirement, two practical reasons in favour. They already know where the county wind lines fall and how the local permit process behaves, and they still have an address in two years, which is roughly when a sealed unit that was going to fail early, fails.
Accurate as far as it goes, written August 2026, and general by design. This page covers Florida contractor licensing as it applies to glass, glazing and window work. It is not a code interpretation and it is not a decision about your address — Port Orange runs from the Halifax out to the interstate, and the answer is not the same at both ends.
Two things worth confirming rather than assuming: what the building department with jurisdiction over your address actually requires, and whether the company quoting you holds the license for the part of the job that needs one. Links for both are on this page and neither check costs anything.