DeLand Glass · DeLand, Orange City & west Volusia County, FL
The first thing to establish is not price. It is whether they can repair, or only replace.
Call (386) 507-0311Florida removed Certified Glass and Glazing Contractor from its mandatory state license types in 2012. The consequence is that putting glass into an existing frame — reglazing a sash, replacing a pane, hanging a mirror — requires no state contractor certification.
The licensed side is structural: installing windows and doors, storefront framing and structurally anchored opening protection needs a Division I contractor or an appropriate specialty license, and local licensing may apply as well.
On an old house that distinction lines up almost exactly with the decision you are already making. Restoring the sash you have is glass work — no permit, no license requirement, and the original window survives. Tearing the window out for a modern unit is permitted construction with a wind-load requirement, a licensed contractor, and in a historic district potentially a review of how it will look from the street.
Both are legitimate. They are not the same purchase, and a company that only sells replacements has no commercial reason to tell you the first option exists. Establish which you are being quoted, and for replacement work take the license number and check it at the state license search.
Ask early and directly: do you repair wood sash windows, or do you replace them?
It is not a trick and there is no wrong answer — plenty of excellent companies only fit replacements, and on the right house that is the right job. What the answer gives you is context for everything they say next. A firm that only sells replacements is not lying when it recommends replacement; it is describing the one product it has. You simply need to know that before weighing the advice.
In an older town there are people who genuinely do sash repair, and there are people who will quote it and subcontract it. Both can work. Ask which, and ask who carries the warranty.
A firm price before anyone has looked at the windows. A large deposit against work with no date. A price that expires tonight. The word hurricane-proof. Refusal to put the license number, the permit responsibility or the warranty terms in writing.
And one that belongs specifically to this town: being told an original window cannot be repaired, without anybody having tested the timber. "They do not make them like that any more" is true and it is an argument for keeping the one you have, not for removing it. If a window is genuinely beyond saving, somebody should be able to show you where the wood has gone and let you push a blade into it. If they cannot, what you have is a sales position rather than an assessment.
No. Florida removed Certified Glass and Glazing Contractor from its mandatory license types in 2012, and putting glass into an existing frame is non-structural glass work. Local licensing may still apply and is worth asking about. Removing the window as a unit is what changes the answer.
Probably neither. On an old house the usual explanation is that one company priced repairing and reglazing the sashes you have while the other priced new windows throughout. Those are different jobs with honest prices attached, and they are not comparable until you make each of them say which they quoted.
Reglazing a sash is a traditional skill and plenty of owners of old houses learn it, particularly with several windows to work through. Florida also allows owners of owner-occupied property to act as their own contractor for permitted work, with conditions including signing the application in person — the county publishes those. Structural work and anything above ground level deserve more caution than a putty knife does.
Not necessarily, but two things help here. Somebody who works on DeLand houses regularly has met the historic review process before and knows how it behaves. And they still have an address in three years, which matters more on repair work whose whole premise is longevity.
Written August 2026, general on purpose, and covering Florida contractor licensing as it applies to glass, glazing and window work. It is not a code interpretation and not a decision about any particular property. On a house that has stood for eighty or ninety years, what applies depends heavily on what has been altered since and whether it was permitted at the time.
Two authorities matter here rather than one. The building department with jurisdiction over your address decides the structural and permit questions. If the property sits in one of DeLand's historic districts, the city may also review changes to what the street can see — a separate process, on its own timetable, and worth asking about before you order anything rather than after.