Fernandina Beachsalt on both sides of town
The official county seat of Nassau County, on the northern end of Amelia Island, Atlantic on the east, Amelia River and the Intracoastal on the west, and its own building department in the middle. Our Nassau County office is here.
The city permitsits own work here
Fernandina Beach is one of only three municipalities in Nassau County, with Callahan and Hilliard, and like both of them it runs its own building department rather than handing permitting to the county. The department sits at 204 Ash Street and takes everything through the city’s online portal, under the 8th Edition (2023) Florida Building Code.
Practically, that means a re-roof here follows a different application, a different fee schedule and a different inspector than an identical house four miles south on the same island. We work with both, and knowing which one your parcel answers to before we quote is part of our job rather than a surprise partway through yours.
Our Nassau County office is at 910 S 8th St Suite 309, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034. Call or text (904) 707-6546. The number takes texts, which is usually faster.
An older citythan the ZIP code it shares
The median home inside Fernandina Beach was built in 1986, according to the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey. The median across ZIP 32034 as a whole is 1997, eleven years newer, because that ZIP carries about 22,644 housing units against roughly 8,168 inside the city. The ZIP is not the city, and the two numbers describe two different building stocks.
For a homeowner, the city figure is the one that matters. A 1986 median means most of this town is past its first roof and well into its second, on framing and flashing details that were detailed to an older code, and it means the honest answer to “can this be repaired?” is more often no here than it is in Yulee.
We will still tell you which it is, and show you the photographs that led us to the answer, before you spend anything.
Two waterfrontsand nowhere to hide from salt
Fernandina Beach has full Atlantic exposure on its east side and a working riverfront on the Amelia River and Intracoastal on its west. There is no inland side of this city. It also carries the lowest tree canopy in Nassau County (41 percent in the state’s 2023 assessment, against 54 and 55 percent in Yulee and Hilliard) so roofs here get less shade and more direct sun and salt than anywhere inland.
Fasteners and flashing
Salt finds metal first. Nail heads corrode, drip edge and valley metal chalk and pit, and step flashing at wall junctions gives up long before the field of the roof does.
Sealants and boots
UV and salt together age pipe boots and sealed penetrations faster than the shingles around them. On a coastal roof the boots are usually the first thing we replace.
Paint and siding
Wind-driven salt spray strips exterior finishes on the weather side of a house years before the sheltered side. Prep is the whole job here, not the paint.
The rain pattern compounds it. NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals for the Fernandina Beach station show about 48.8 inches a year spread across roughly 109 days, but 15 of those days deliver an inch or more. Coastal roofs here are not worn down by drizzle. They are tested a dozen or so times a year by a lot of water arriving at once, driven sideways.
Which is why metal and shingle systems get specified differently on this island, and why exterior painting and windows and doors come up in the same conversation as the roof more often here than anywhere else we work.
What the stormshave actually done here
Matthew, October 2016, is the benchmark. The National Weather Service recorded widespread tree, powerline and structural damage across Nassau County, with most of the wind damage at coastal locations including Fernandina Beach and reports of trees down on structures. The tide gauge here reached 6.91 feet NAVD88: the third highest reading in its history, behind only the 1898 and 1944 hurricanes, and higher than Hurricane Dora’s in 1964. Fernandina Beach Airport gusted to 60 mph.
Helene, September 2024, gusted to 51 mph at the airport, and the Weather Service logged trees falling on homes and cars causing extensive damage in Fernandina Beach. More than 31,000 Nassau County customers, around 58 percent of the county, lost power.
Irma, September 2017, put an EF-0 tornado down just south of the city in the early hours of 11 September, with another on northern Amelia Island, and blew several trees onto homes near Fernandina Beach.
None of those was a direct landfall. That is rather the point. This coast gets brushed regularly, and the brushing is what takes roofs off.
Nearbyand worth reading first
Fernandina Beachquestions we get asked
The City of Fernandina Beach Building Department does, from 204 Ash Street, and all of its permitting runs through the city's own online portal. Nassau County does not permit inside the city limits. This is one of exactly three municipalities in the county that runs its own building department, alongside Callahan and Hilliard. The 8th Edition (2023) Florida Building Code is what the city is enforcing. We pull the permit ourselves and we do not perform unpermitted work.
No, and this catches people out constantly. ZIP 32034 carries roughly 22,644 housing units while the city itself holds about 8,168, so most of that ZIP is not the city. Parcels on the southern part of Amelia Island are unincorporated Nassau County and still carry a Fernandina Beach, FL 32034 mailing address, which means your mail tells you nothing about who permits your roof. The Nassau County Property Appraiser's GIS map is the way to settle it for a specific parcel.
The city does not publish a wind speed figure of its own, and neither does Nassau County. The governing document is the county's adopted Florida Building Code 2023 wind map, which places standard homes in this part of Northeast Florida in the 120 to 130 mph ultimate design wind speed band, rising toward the ocean. Anyone quoting you 150 or 180 mph for a Fernandina Beach address is not reading that map. For a specific address, the building department or the ASCE 7 Hazard Tool gives the definitive number.
That depends on whether your parcel is inside the wind-borne debris region, and that is a determination for the city building department rather than for a contractor. The region is defined as land within a mile of the mean high-water line where the ultimate design wind speed reaches 130 mph or more, so it is a narrow coastal question, and on this stretch of coast it is genuinely close to the line. Ask the building department before anyone sells you glazing on the basis of a rule they have not checked.
It corrodes the metal long before it wears out the shingles, and in a city whose median home dates to 1986, a good deal of that metal is original to the house. Fernandina Beach has the Atlantic on its east side and the Amelia River and the Intracoastal on its west, so no part of town gets a sheltered aspect to hide behind. On older stock that usually means drip edge, valley metal and step flashing detailed to a much earlier edition of the code, sitting beneath a roof covering that has already been replaced at least once. We price flashing and penetrations into the roof here rather than treating them as an extra, because on this housing stock they are rarely worth reusing.
Older than the county around it. The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey puts the median Fernandina Beach home at 1986, against a Nassau County median of 2000. A 1986 median means a large share of this city is on its second or third roof already, and that replacement, not a first re-roof, is the common conversation here. It also means more wood rot, more original flashing details and more surprises under the shingles, which is why we photograph everything we find.
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Call or text us with your address and what you're seeing. We'll get out to look, send photos of whatever we find, and tell you honestly whether it's a repair or a replacement.
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