Home remodeling in St. Petersburg, FL.

A bathroom and a kitchen that are 60 to 70 years old. St. Petersburg has close to 142,000 homes. Almost one in four went up in the 1950s, the biggest decade. Two in three are from before 1980, and the middle year is 1970. There are three kinds of house here. The wood bungalow from before 1940, with sash windows and old tile, in Old Northeast, Kenwood and Roser Park. The block house of the 1950s and 1960s, with aluminum or slatted glass windows. That one fills Shore Acres, Snell Isle, Lakewood and Pinellas Point. And the 1970s block house, built before the 2002 wind code. Half the windows, kitchens and driveways in the city are past 50 years. We open the house before we set a price.

Here the risk is storm surge, not a river. FEMA draws no floodway and no levee anywhere in the city. It does draw 70 wave zones, called VE, on all three shores. Shore Acres and Snell Isle are zone AE, with a base flood height of 9 feet. Downtown, Old Northeast, Kenwood and the high part of Pinellas Point are zone X, the lowest risk. Under the slab, the middle of the city is sand that drains on its own. The islands and the shore are dredged fill, with water a hand below the surface. Lakewood is wet sand over a hard layer, and it puddles after rain. We look up the address on the flood map before we scope a big job.

It does, if the house is in zone A, AE or VE. The city sets the line at 49 percent, not 50. Every repair and improvement on the structure adds up. The line is 49 percent of what the structure was worth before the damage. Cross it, and the whole house must come up to code. That can mean lifting it above the base flood height. After Helene and Milton the city counted more than 12,000 damaged properties. It opened a code case on each one. A case is not a violation. It becomes one only if work is done without a permit. So in Shore Acres a storm repair plus a kitchen can cross the line together. We run that math before we write the scope.

In a local historic district, yes. St. Petersburg keeps its own register. Roser Park, Granada Terrace, Lang's Bungalow Court and some blocks of Kenwood and Old Northeast are on it. There, any change to the outside needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before the permit. City staff signs most of it: a new driveway, a non-historic window, a small addition. Replacing a historic window goes to the commission, in a public hearing. Repainting a painted wall needs no review at all. Staff review costs 50 dollars and a hearing 300. Old Northeast and Kenwood as a whole are national districts, and those carry no certificate. Only the local sections do. We check your block on the register before you pick a window.

Yes, all of it. On the Florida Building Code map, St. Petersburg sits between the 140 and 150 mph lines, at about 145. The 140 line runs about 20 miles to the northeast, the 150 line about 21 miles to the southwest. At 140 or more a house is in the windborne debris region, so the whole city is in. The first mile from the shore is in by the coast rule too. There, a replaced window or door needs impact glass or approved protection. There is one exception for houses permitted before March 2002. Replace 25 percent or less of the glass in the house in 12 months, and design pressure is enough. Above that, everything you change is impact. We count the openings before we quote.

It is hard, and the city prints the number. The 2024 city water report puts hardness at 165 mg/L, an average of monthly samples. Anything over 120 mg/L counts as hard. That is about 9.6 grains per gallon by our own conversion, since the city reports only mg/L. The water comes from the regional utility, a blend of well water, river water and treated sea water. The city softens it with lime at its Cosme plant, so it lands a little softer than Tampa. It is still hard water. Scale shows first on shower glass, dark faucets and matte tile. In a new bathroom or kitchen we point you to the finishes that hide it. That choice goes in the scope, so nobody is surprised a month later.