Miramar began as a small bedroom community of concrete homes
Miramar incorporated on May 26, 1955, with fewer than 200 residents. The first mayor, Robert Gordon, named it; the Spanish name means "look at the sea" and echoes a well-known suburb of Havana. Founder A.L. Mailman built 56 inexpensive homes of concrete with flat roofs, as a bedroom community for Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The original city covered about 2.9 square miles, from SW 64th Avenue west to University Drive and from Pembroke Road south to the Dade County line. Pembroke Road was a dirt road then.
The city had 5,485 residents in 1960 and 23,997 in 1970. Doors on houses this old have often been replaced at least once, so a single street can have sliders from several decades. Older aluminum doors here commonly have worn wheels, bent tracks and latches that have drifted out of line with the keeper.
Silver Lakes and the western communities were built around water
As Broward grew west, Miramar filled in with master-planned neighborhoods such as Silver Lakes, Sunset Lakes and Miramar Isles. Silver Lakes, built from about 1990, straddles the Miramar and Pembroke Pines line and is organized around large lakes, so many homes back onto the water. Riviera Isles is a gated community in the west of the city. Today Miramar covers about 31 square miles, about six percent of it water.
Lakefront homes in these neighborhoods share a few door problems:
- Humidity off the lake that hardens weatherstrip and lets mildew grow in the sill channel.
- Heavy impact glass on wide multi-panel doors, which wears rollers faster than older single doors.
- Lawn grit and grass clippings blown into the track by mowers and leaf blowers.
Clean the channel with a vacuum and a damp cloth, and keep the weep holes clear. If the door drags, it is usually the rollers; see roller repair.
In HOA communities, a new door may need approval before it is ordered
Many of western Miramar's communities are run by HOAs, and many HOAs approve exterior changes such as door style, frame color and glass tint. A like-for-like repair rarely changes the look. A replacement often does, so check the rules first.
For a repair, it helps to know what you have. Look for a label on the frame or on the edge of the glass, which may name the maker, series or product approval. Take a photo of the panel's lower corner where it rides the track. With that, the right track or lock parts can usually be planned before the visit.
A typical roller repair goes like this. The moving panel is lifted out of its track, which on an impact door takes two people because of the weight. The old rollers come out of the bottom rail, the rail is cleaned and checked for cracks, and new rollers sized for the panel go in. The track is cleaned and, if the rail is worn, capped. Then the panel goes back in and the rollers are adjusted so the door sits level, meets the latch and seals along its edges. On a lakefront home, this is also the moment to replace hardened weatherstrip. In the older east side houses, where the walls are concrete, a door that has worked loose in its opening may also need its frame fasteners checked before the panel is rehung.
Miramar doors fall under the High Velocity Hurricane Zone
Miramar is in Broward County, and Broward and Miami-Dade together are the High Velocity Hurricane Zone of the Florida Building Code. In Silver Lakes or the older eastern streets, a Miramar replacement slider needs an approval for the HVHZ. Miami-Dade approvals for sliding glass doors require each unit to carry a permanent label reading "Miami-Dade County Product Control Approved."
Miramar's storm months begin in June. Before then, slide each door fully open and closed, lock it, and check the glass edges. If a panel breaks, emergency glass repair secures the opening first.
Miramar borders Pembroke Pines to the north and Miami Gardens across the county line. See the Broward County page for every city.