Somewhere on your roofing estimate there is probably a wind number. One hundred thirty. One hundred forty. One hundred sixty. It is printed next to the shingle name, usually in bold, usually with no explanation.
Florida has a free, public, searchable database that tells you what that product is actually approved to do. It has existed for more than twenty years. Almost no homeowner has ever opened it.
This post shows you how.
The state keeps a file on every roofing product sold here
Florida Statute 553.842 requires the Florida Building Commission to run a product evaluation and approval system that operates statewide alongside the Florida Building Code. Subsection (5) names the categories that have to go through it:
One of these methods must be used by the commission to approve the following categories of products: panel walls, exterior doors, roofing, skylights, windows, shutters, impact protective systems, and structural components as established by the commission by rule.
Roofing is on the list. Shingles, tile, metal panels, underlayment, drip edge, roofing fasteners, adhesives — the components that make up your roof each have a file.
Those files live in the Building Codes Information System, the BCIS, at floridabuilding.org. Product Approval, then Product or Application Search. No account, no fee, no login.
The sentence in the statute that most homeowners should read
Buried in the same subsection is a consumer-protection provision with real teeth:
A product may not be advertised, sold, offered, provided, distributed, or marketed as hurricane, windstorm, or impact protection from wind-borne debris from a hurricane or windstorm unless it is approved pursuant to this section or s. 553.8425. Any person who advertises, sells, offers, provides, distributes, or markets a product as hurricane, windstorm, or impact protection from wind-borne debris without such approval is subject to the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Read that carefully. Selling something in Florida as hurricane or windstorm protection, when it has not been approved under either the statewide route or the local route, is not a gray area. The Legislature attached it to the state’s deceptive-trade-practices law.
That is the backstop. The point of this post is that you do not have to rely on a backstop, because you can check it yourself.
How to read an FL number
The search page spells out the format in its own help text: FL (Application: ##### or Product: #####.#).
- FL12345 — an application. One manufacturer submission, which often covers a whole family of products.
- FL12345.3 — a product inside that application. The decimal is the specific item.
That distinction matters more than it looks. An estimate that cites only the application number has told you which folder to open, not which product is going on your house. If a manufacturer’s application covers eight shingle lines and four of them are discontinued, the bare application number does not narrow anything down. Ask for the decimal.
The eight fields on the approval page, and what each one is telling you
When you pull up an approval, you are looking at a structured record. These are the fields worth your attention, in the order they matter for a Volusia County re-roof.
1. Approval status
The system tracks eight states: Approved, Validated, Pending FBC Approval, Applied For, Re-Apply, Denied, Suspended and Revoked.
Only the first two mean the product is good to go. The rest range from “not finished yet” to “the state pulled it.” A product sitting in Applied For is not an approved product, and a sales brochure will never tell you the difference.
2. Code version
This is the field people get wrong most often, and it is the one the statute explains. Under 553.842(1)(f):
State and local approvals will be valid until the requirements of the code on which the approval is based change, the product changes in a manner affecting its performance as required by the code, or the approval is revoked.
So approvals do not expire on a date. They expire when the code edition underneath them moves. That is exactly why the BCIS search box makes you pick a version from a list running 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2020, 2023. The site states plainly that the current one is the 2023 Florida Building Code, which became effective December 31, 2023.
An approval that looks perfectly healthy under the 2020 code is the wrong document for a permit pulled today. Check the version, not just the status.
3. Category and subcategory
Roofing is a category; within it the state separates shingles from underlayment from fasteners from metal panels. A homeowner reviewing an estimate should expect multiple approvals, not one. The shingle is approved. The underlayment is separately approved. The drip edge is separately approved. If a single FL number is offered as covering the entire roof, that is worth a question.
4. HVHZ and Non-HVHZ
Two separate yes/no flags. The High-Velocity Hurricane Zone in the Florida Building Code is defined in one short sentence: this zone consists of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
Volusia County is not in it. So the flag that matters for a roof in Port Orange, Daytona Beach or New Smyrna Beach is Non-HVHZ, and an HVHZ approval is a bonus rather than a requirement.
This is also where the Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance fits. NOAs get quoted in sales pitches statewide, and there is a real reason for it: Fla. Stat. 553.842(8)(a) specifically names the Miami-Dade County Building Code Compliance Office Product Control Division as one of the approved evaluation entities, alongside UL, Intertek and ICC-ES. An NOA is legitimate evidence anywhere in Florida. It is just not something Volusia County requires, and anyone implying otherwise is selling.
5. Impact resistant
A third yes/no flag, and a different property from wind. Impact resistance is about what happens when something hits the roof. It is graded by tests such as UL 2218, which runs Class 1 through Class 4. Wind classification is about uplift and is graded separately. Carriers sometimes discount for one, sometimes the other, sometimes neither. We walk through that in our guide to impact-resistant shingles and Florida insurance savings.
6. Compliance method
The state records which of four evidence routes the approval rests on, and the list mirrors 553.842(5)(a) word for word: a certification mark or listing, a test report, an evaluation report from a product evaluation entity, or an evaluation report from a Florida registered architect or a licensed Florida professional engineer.
All four are valid. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you how much testing sits behind the number.
7. Design pressure
For some roofing products the approval carries a design pressure value. This is an engineering figure tied to the building, its height, its exposure and the zone of the roof — corners and edges take far more uplift than the middle of a field. It is not a consumer-facing mph number and it is not meant to be read as one.
8. Limits of use and installation instructions
The most important field, and the one nobody reads. Every approval attaches the conditions under which the number is good: allowable deck types, minimum and maximum slope, fastener type and count, required underlayment, required starter and ridge products.
Here is why that field decides everything. Fla. Stat. 553.842(4):
Notwithstanding a local government’s authority to amend the Florida Building Code as provided in this act, statewide approval shall preclude local jurisdictions from requiring further testing, evaluation, or submission of other evidence as a condition of using the product so long as the product is being used consistent with the conditions of its approval.
And 553.842(9) supplies the consequence:
A building official may deny the local application of a product or method or system of construction which has received statewide approval, based upon a written report signed by the official that concludes the product application is inconsistent with the statewide approval and that states the reasons the application is inconsistent.
The approval protects the product as described in the file. It does not protect an installation that departs from it. A shingle installed with four nails where the approval calls for six is not a code-compliant roof with a minor deviation. It is a roof installed outside the document the whole wind number depends on.
That is the sentence to remember: the rating lives in the installation, not in the brochure.
Wind classification versus wind warranty
Now back to that bold number on your estimate.
The Florida Building Code handles shingle wind resistance in Chapter 15. Section 1504.1.1 says asphalt shingles shall be designed for wind speeds in accordance with Section 1507.2.7, and 1507.2.7.1 sets out the actual requirement:
Asphalt shingles shall be tested and classified in accordance with ASTM D3161, ASTM D7158 or TAS 107 and shall meet the required classification in accordance with Table 1507.2.7.1 to resist the applicable wind speed per Figure 1609.3(1), 1609.3(2), 1609.3(3) or 1609.3(4) based on the risk category.
Notice what the code asks for: a classification. Letters, not a headline speed. Under ASTM D7158 the classes are D, G and H. Under ASTM D3161 they are A, D and F. Table 1507.2.7.1 then maps them against wind speed, and it prints two columns of speeds side by side — the basic wind speed from the code’s maps, and Vasd as determined under Section 1609.3.1. The rows run 110/85, 116/90, 129/100, 142/110, 155/120, 168/130, 181/140 and 194/150.
Volusia County assigns a Risk Category II basic wind speed of 130 mph across our service area, including both sides of I-95 in Port Orange. That lands just past the 129 mph row, where the table steps up: Class D is no longer sufficient under D7158, and under D3161 the requirement moves to Class F. Which row an individual building actually falls on is a determination for the contractor and, where required, a Florida engineer — not something to eyeball off a blog post. The useful takeaway is simply that there is a table, it is public, and it has a right answer for your address.
A “160 mph” line on an estimate is usually something else entirely. It is very often the manufacturer’s extended wind warranty figure. Those warranties are real and they are worth having, but they normally come with conditions — the ones we install most are conditioned on using that manufacturer’s own starter strip and hip-and-ridge shingles, so a mixed-brand install quietly voids the number the homeowner was sold on.
Both facts can be true. The shingle can hold an ASTM classification and carry a 160 mph warranty. They are two different claims from two different systems, and an estimate that blurs them is telling you something about the company that wrote it. We unpack the marketing side of this in what 160 mph shingles really mean for your insurance.
What Volusia County asks for at the permit desk
This is not an abstract exercise. Volusia County’s own residential permit information sheet spells out what roof documentation has to be in the submittal:
Plans must contain roof assembly information including substrate, type of roofing system, materials, fastening requirements, flashing requirements, wind rating, product evaluation or site specific statement by Architect or Engineer.
Product evaluation. In the permit file. Which means your contractor is pulling these documents anyway — asking to see them costs nobody anything. For how the rest of the permit sequence works locally, see our Volusia County roof permit walkthrough and the fuller roofing permits guide.
What to do with all this before you sign
Five questions. They take about four minutes and they change the tone of an estimate conversation immediately.
- “What is the FL number for the shingle, with the decimal?” Not the application — the product.
- “Which code version is that approval under?” You want 2023.
- “What are the FL numbers for the underlayment, drip edge and fasteners?” There should be more than one document.
- “What does the approval require for fastener count and deck type on my roof?” This is the limits-of-use field, and it is where a real roofer separates from a salesperson.
- “Is 160 mph a classification or a warranty, and what conditions keep the warranty valid?” If the answer is vague, you have learned something.
Then go verify one of them yourself. floridabuilding.org, Product Approval, Product or Application Search, type the FL number, pick 2023, hit search. If what comes back does not match what you were told, that is worth a phone call before anything gets signed.
Estimates that survive this check tend to be the ones worth comparing. Our guide to comparing roofing estimates covers the rest of the line items, and how to choose a roofing contractor in Florida covers the licensing side. If a company is working hard to keep you away from the paperwork, our notes on storm-chaser tactics in Volusia County will look familiar.
Why we wrote this
Affordable Roofing & Construction has been working in Volusia County for more than twenty years, licensed as CCC 1327602 and CGC 1509441. We pull product approvals on every job because the building department requires them, and we are happy to hand them to a homeowner before the contract rather than after.
If you would rather have somebody walk your roof and put the actual product documents in front of you, that is what a free estimate is for. Call 386-392-8952 or request one here. While you are reading, our breakdowns of asphalt shingle brands in Florida and secondary water barriers cover the two components most likely to appear on your estimate with a number you cannot check.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Florida Product Approval number?
It is the state file number for a building product that has been evaluated against the Florida Building Code under Fla. Stat. 553.842. Roofing is one of eight product categories the statute requires to be approved this way. The number appears as FL followed by digits. A plain number like FL12345 is the application; a number with a decimal like FL12345.3 is one specific product inside that application. Anyone can look it up for free at floridabuilding.org.
Is a roofing product illegal in Florida without an FL number?
Not necessarily. Statewide approval is one route. Fla. Stat. 553.8425 also allows local product approval through a certification mark or listing, a test report, an evaluation report from an approved entity, or an evaluation report signed and sealed by a Florida engineer or architect. If there is no FL number, the correct question is which of those routes the contractor is using and whether that document is going into the permit file.
Does Volusia County require a Miami-Dade NOA?
No. The High-Velocity Hurricane Zone in the Florida Building Code consists of Broward and Miami-Dade counties only. Volusia is outside it. Miami-Dade Notices of Acceptance are still honored here because Fla. Stat. 553.842(8)(a) names the Miami-Dade County Building Code Compliance Office Product Control Division as a Commission-approved evaluation entity. So an NOA is useful evidence in Volusia County, not a requirement.
Do Florida Product Approvals expire?
Not on a calendar date. Under Fla. Stat. 553.842(1)(f) an approval stays valid until the code requirements it was based on change, the product itself changes in a way that affects performance, or the approval is revoked. That is why the search page makes you choose a code version. The current edition is the 2023 Florida Building Code, effective December 31, 2023, so an approval you find under the 2020 code is the wrong file for work permitted today.
My estimate says 160 mph shingles. Is that the code wind rating?
Usually not. Shingles are classified for wind under ASTM D3161, ASTM D7158 or TAS 107, and those classifications use letters such as Class F, Class G and Class H rather than a headline mph number. A figure like 160 mph is very often a manufacturer wind warranty, which normally requires specific starter strip and hip-and-ridge products to stay valid. Both can be true at once. They are simply not the same thing, and only one of them is code compliance.
What should I ask my roofing contractor about product approval?
Ask for the FL number or local approval document for the shingle, the underlayment, the drip edge and the fasteners; ask which code version it was pulled under; ask what the approval requires for deck type, fastener count and slope; and ask that the same documents go into the permit file. A licensed contractor pulls those every time a permit is applied for, so none of it is a difficult request.
Can my building official reject a product that already has state approval?
Yes, in one specific situation. Fla. Stat. 553.842(9) lets a building official deny the local application of a statewide-approved product based on a written, signed report concluding the application is inconsistent with the approval and stating why. The approval protects the product as it is described in the file. It does not protect an installation that departs from it.
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