What a custom windows & doors project in Tice actually costs and how long it takes
A custom windows and doors job in Tice typically runs between $12,000 and $38,000 and takes 3 to 7 working days once the custom units are fabricated and on site. The wide range comes down to how many openings you’re replacing, whether you’re upsizing rough openings or reframing for a different door configuration, and the impact-rating requirements Lee County code enforces on nearly every permit pull. Call (844) 638-7249 for a free, line-item estimate at your home - we don’t give phone quotes without seeing the walls and the existing flashing firsthand.
How we handle custom windows and doors on Tice properties, stage by stage
Custom work around here means the windows and doors are built to your opening sizes, not mass-produced stock pulled from a distribution yard. Most Tice homes we work on were framed in the 1960s and 1970s, so the rough openings are rarely square, the exterior wall depths vary between concrete block and furred-out drywall, and the existing jamb fastening needs real evaluation before we order anything. Here’s the sequence we follow on every job.
1. On-site measurement and opening assessment (1 visit, about 90 minutes)
One of our window and door technicians comes out, pulls interior casing to inspect the rough opening if needed, checks the lintel condition above every window and door header, and takes measurements to the ⅛ inch. This is when we determine whether the existing buck framing or block opening can accept a standard custom configuration or if we need to reframe for a larger patio door or a wider window unit. You choose your material profile and glass package at this meeting - fiberglass, vinyl, or aluminum-clad wood, and whether you need standard Low-E or impact-rated laminated glass - and we write the spec into the estimate that same day.
2. Permitting and Lee County pre-approval (1 to 3 weeks, office-side)
Because Tice is unincorporated Lee County, every permit flows through the building department in Fort Myers. We file the permit application the same week the order goes to the manufacturer, and we pre-schedule the rough-in and final inspections at the time of submittal. Post-Ian inspection queues still run longer than pre-storm norms, so locking in the inspection date before the materials even ship keeps your job from stalling mid-phase for weeks. For projects where we’re widening an opening or replacing a window with a door, the permit package includes the structural drawings showing the new header and tie-down detail the inspector needs to sign off.
3. Material fabrication and delivery (4 to 8 weeks, depending on the manufacturer)
Custom units aren’t sitting on a shelf. Once the order is placed with Andersen or Marvin (or whichever brand you’ve chosen), fabrication runs 4 to 8 weeks depending on the complexity of the glazing and the volume in the plant. We track the order weekly and coordinate delivery to your Tice property so materials don’t sit on site exposed to Florida humidity and afternoon thunderstorms for any longer than necessary. The day before delivery, we confirm the inspection date with Lee County so installation starts clean.
4. Installation - removal, flashing, and setting (2 to 5 working days)
The crew arrives, protects the interior with floor coverings, and removes the existing windows or doors one opening at a time. In Tice’s older CBS homes, we almost always find deteriorated felt or missing sill pan flashing behind the original aluminum frames - the 60-year-old tar paper gave up a long time ago. We install new self-adhered flashing membrane at every sill and jamb, shim the new unit plumb and square, and fasten into the block with Tapcons or into the wood buck with structural screws rated for the wind zone. Exterior trim gets backer rod and a high-quality polyurethane sealant, not a cheap painter’s caulk that separates in two rainy seasons.
5. Trim-out, inspection, and walkthrough (1 day)
Interior casing goes back on - or gets replaced if you chose new trim - and we insulate any gap between the new frame and the rough opening with low-expansion foam. The Lee County inspector checks the anchoring, the impact-rating labels on every unit, and the flashing detail. Once the inspection passes, we walk the whole job with you, operate every sash and door swing, and leave the manufacturer’s warranty registration card filled out. You get a copy of the passed inspection, the warranty paperwork, and our 730-Day Done Right Promise in writing.
The options you’ll choose between for custom windows and doors
Custom doesn’t mean infinite - it means you’re picking the frame material, the glass package, and the operating style that suit your house and your budget. Here’s what we talk through with every Tice homeowner at the estimate.
- Frame material - vinyl, fiberglass, or aluminum-clad wood. Vinyl is the most affordable and handles Florida humidity without rust or rot, but the color selection is limited and dark frames can warp if they’re in direct afternoon sun on a west-facing wall. Fiberglass is stronger, expands and contracts at nearly the same rate as the glass (which means the seal lasts longer), and costs about 20-30% more than vinyl. Aluminum-clad wood gives you a real wood interior that stained or painted looks beautiful in a mid-century Tice home, but it’s the priciest option, and if the exterior cladding gets scratched deep enough to reach the wood substrate, you’ll chase moisture issues.
- Glass - Low-E insulated or impact-rated laminated. Standard Low-E insulated glass cuts heat gain and meets code for most openings. If the window or door is in a location the Florida Building Code designates as requiring impact protection - and for whole-wall replacements in Tice, the county often requires impact-rated products regardless of opening location - you step up to laminated glass with an interlayer that holds the pane together when struck. The cost increase is real, usually $800 to $2,000 extra per large opening, but so is the insurance premium reduction most carriers give for a fully impact-rated envelope.
- Operating style - single-hung, double-hung, casement, or fixed picture. Single-hung is the budget choice and works fine for bedrooms and side elevations. Casement windows crank open and seal tighter against wind-driven rain - worth the upgrade for the east-facing walls that catch Tice’s afternoon thunderstorms. Picture windows are fixed glass and the least expensive per square foot, but they don’t ventilate, which matters in a house without a whole-home dehumidifier. For doors, the big choice is between a single inswing, French double doors, or a sliding patio configuration - and on a 1960s slab house, that often means cutting concrete to recess the track, which we price into the quote upfront.
What custom windows and doors cost in Tice, FL
Expect to spend $12,000 to $38,000 for a full custom windows and doors project on a typical Tice home, with most mid-scope whole-house window replacements landing around $18,000 to $24,000. At the low end, you’re replacing 6 to 8 standard-size windows with vinyl single-hungs and keeping your existing front door. At the high end, you’re doing 12 to 16 openings, mixing impact-rated casements and a 12-foot sliding glass door in fiberglass, and reframing at least two rough openings. Here’s what pushes the number.
Number and size of openings. This drives the material cost more than anything else. A 30-by-60-inch bedroom window costs far less than a 72-by-80-inch patio door, both in the unit price and in the labor to set and flash it.
Impact-rating requirement. When Lee County requires impact-rated laminated glass across the whole job, material cost jumps 30-50% over standard Low-E insulated units. We’ll tell you during the estimate whether your specific permit scope triggers it.
Reframing scope. If we’re converting a 36-inch window into a 6-foot sliding door, we pull a structural permit, install a new engineered header, and tie it into the block wall per current code. That adds $1,500 to $4,000 per opening depending on the span and the access.
Trim and interior finish. Reusing the existing interior casing keeps costs down. Replacing all the casing with new paint-grade or stain-grade trim, or adding extension jambs for a deeper wall cavity, adds $150 to $400 per opening.
Every estimate we write is a fixed-price, line-item document - not a ballpark, not a range. You’ll see the per-opening cost broken down by material, labor, flashing, and trim, and the number on that proposal is the number you pay. No change order unless you change the scope.
What Tice homes specifically do to a custom windows and doors job
Tice’s housing stock is predominantly modest CBS homes built between the 1950s and 1970s, and nearly every one we open up still has the original single-pane jalousie or aluminum-frame windows that were code-compliant when Eisenhower was president but don’t come close to meeting today’s wind-load and impact-resistance standards. When we pull a permit for a whole-house window replacement in Tice, Lee County routinely triggers a full Florida Building Code compliance review - meaning the new units need impact-rated glazing or shutters, the rough opening anchoring has to meet current missile-impact test standards, and if the existing lintels are rusted or undersized by modern calcs, we replace them before the new window goes in. It’s a layered code-upgrade job, not a simple swap, and it’s one of the reasons out-of-area crews who parachuted in after Ian’s 2022 eyewall passed directly over this community got in over their heads - they priced the job as a straightforward replacement and didn’t account for the county’s post-storm permitting reality.
We also deal with moisture that the original builders never planned for. Tice sits in a high-humidity, high-water-table zone where afternoon thunderstorms pool water against slab edges, and after 50 or 60 years, the bottom plates of exterior walls and the wood bucks around window openings have often wicked moisture. We find rotted bucks, termite galleries, and mold inside the wall cavity on roughly a third of the Tice jobs we open. We treat that as part of the window and door scope - if the buck is gone, we replace it with pressure-treated lumber and a sill pan flashing system that drains to the exterior - because putting a $3,000 impact window into a rotted opening is just building a future failure. This sort of layered remediation is what makes our Windows & Doors in Tice work different from the same job in a 2010s gated subdivision across the river.
From a scheduling standpoint, every Tice job lives or dies by Lee County’s inspection calendar. Since the community is unincorporated, all construction permits run through the county building department in Fort Myers - and even three years post-Ian, inspection queues for window and door replacements still stretch further than most homeowners expect. We pre-schedule inspections at the moment of permit application, not after the units are set, which keeps your finished job from sitting open and waiting for a sign-off for weeks. If you’re pairing windows and doors with exterior hardscape, some homeowners use the same permit window to tackle a Concrete Driveways & Concrete Work in Tice project so the whole exterior gets done under one inspection cycle, or they roll the window work into a larger exterior refresh that includes Paver Driveways in Tice when the concrete truck is already scheduled.
Serving Tice, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Tice area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
Frequently asked - custom windows and doors in Tice
Count on 7 to 14 weeks total. The on-site measurement and estimate happen within a few days of your call. Permitting with Lee County takes 1 to 3 weeks. The manufacturer needs 4 to 8 weeks to fabricate custom-sized units. Installation itself runs 2 to 5 working days, and the final inspection happens the day after we finish if we pre-scheduled it during permitting. A stock-size window swap can move much faster; custom work is slower because nothing is sitting on a shelf.
Yes. Lee County requires a permit for any window or door replacement that involves removing the frame, and for any opening where the new unit’s size or type differs from the original. If you’re going from a window to a door or widening an opening, you need a structural permit with an engineered header detail. We handle the entire permit package as part of the job, and the cost is included in the estimate - you won’t deal with the county building department directly.
It depends on the scope. A direct same-size replacement of one or two windows often allows standard Low-E insulated glass. A whole-house window replacement, or any job that enlarges openings, typically triggers a full Florida Building Code compliance review, and the county will require impact-rated products on every opening unless you have an alternative protection system like rated shutters. We tell you which way the permit is going to land during the estimate so there are zero surprises when the order goes in.
The manufacturer’s warranty covers the window or door unit - Andersen and Marvin, for example, offer 20-year limited warranties on the glass and 10-year on non-glass components - and our 730-Day Done Right Promise covers the installation labor, flashing, and trim workmanship. If something shifts, leaks, or separates because of how we installed it in the first two years, we come back and make it right at no cost. That’s over and above whatever the manufacturer covers.
Yes. We match the sightlines, the frame profile width, the exterior color, and the grid pattern to the original windows where that’s the goal. For 1950s and 1960s CBS homes, we commonly spec aluminum-clad wood windows in a bronze or white finish with a narrow sightline that reads as period-correct from the curb, even though the glass is modern Low-E or impact-rated laminated. If the house has a distinctive original mullion pattern, we replicate it in the custom order. Call (844) 638-7249 and we’ll bring finish samples and frame cross-sections to your estimate so you see exactly what the finished elevation will look like.
Get a free custom windows and doors estimate at your Tice home
Call (844) 638-7249 and we’ll schedule an on-site measurement and estimate - usually within a few days. One of our Windows & Doors technicians comes to your property in Tice, takes the exact opening dimensions, walks you through the material and glass options that fit your house and your budget, and leaves you a fixed-price proposal the same day. The estimate is free, the pricing is line-item, and nothing gets ordered until you say go.
Written by Derek Hollenbeck, Owner at Groundwork Construction Co., serving Florida homeowners since 2014.