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Jerith Home Additions & ADU: The Fort Lauderdale Owner’s Guide
A Jerith home addition or ADU project in Fort Lauderdale typically runs $45,000 to $130,000, depending on square footage, foundation work, and whether you’re building up or out. We stock the framing hardware, fasteners, and structural connectors that match Jerith’s aluminum and steel specifications, and we can usually start your estimate within a few days of your call.
Most owners discover their Jerith addition has a problem the hard way: a door that suddenly doesn’t close square, a soft spot in the subfloor near the original house line, or a roofline that develops a dip after a heavy South Florida rain. The failure usually isn’t the Jerith material itself. It’s the connection point where the new work meets the old structure, or the flashing detail that Fort Lauderdale’s humidity and salt air worked on for a few summers before it gave up.
We’re an independent contractor in Fort Lauderdale, not affiliated with Jerith, but our crews have torn apart enough of these additions to know exactly what fails and what holds up. Luca Romano has seen the same pattern across older builds near Las Olas Boulevard and newer ones out west toward Plantation: the aluminum framing is rarely the problem. The execution around it is.
Which Jerith Models This Applies To
Jerith builds aluminum fence and gate systems primarily, but their structural extrusions and post systems show up in screen enclosures, pool cages, and lightweight addition framing across South Florida. If your addition or ADU uses Jerith’s aluminum channel profiles or their post-and-rail system, the parts we match cover the full range of their residential product lines.
Here’s where owners get tripped up: Jerith uses several different post wall thicknesses depending on wind-load requirements, and the Fort Lauderdale building code demands uplift resistance that generic box-store parts don’t meet. A post that looks identical on the outside can be 0.062″, 0.080″, or 0.100″ wall thickness, and using the wrong one on a load-bearing corner is how you end up with a sagging roofline within two years.
To identify what you have, look for the sticker or stamped code on the inside face of the post or on the top rail. If the sticker is gone, measure the outside dimension with a caliper and check the wall thickness at any drilled hole. We carry OEM-spec Jerith-compatible posts, rails, brackets, and fasteners in the common residential sizes, and we can order non-stock profiles within a week. For most Fort Lauderdale jobs, the OEM option is worth the extra 10 – 15% because the alloy is matched to the original, and mixed metals in salt air create galvanic corrosion that eats the cheaper aftermarket stuff fast.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Jerith Home Addition or ADU Is Failing
- Doors and windows stick or won’t latch. When the Jerith aluminum frame shifts because a post base is corroding at the concrete, the openings rack slightly. You’ll notice it first on the hinge side of an exterior door.
- Visible white powder or pitting at post bases. That’s galvanic corrosion from aluminum sitting directly on concrete without a proper isolation pad. In Fort Lauderdale’s humidity and occasional salt spray near the coast, this is the most common failure we see.
- Sag or dip in a roofline or screen enclosure. A Jerith post that wasn’t sized for uplift or a splice that was over-drilled eventually deflects. Look at the line of the top rail from the street. It should be dead straight.
- Cracks at the drywall or stucco seam where the addition meets the original house. That seam is a movement joint, and if it wasn’t flashed and sealed correctly, the cracks tell you the two structures are working against each other instead of moving together.
- Water staining or soft flooring near the original wall line. This means the flashing between old and new failed, water’s been getting in, and the subfloor is paying for it. By the time you see the stain, the damage below is usually bigger than the stain above.
See the difference
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After
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
A full Jerith addition or ADU build in Fort Lauderdale runs $45,000 to $130,000. Smaller structural repairs on an existing Jerith-framed addition usually land between $3,000 and $15,000 depending on how many posts need replacing and whether we’re pulling drywall back to access the connection points.
| Scope of Work | Typical Fort Lauderdale Range |
|---|---|
| Full home addition (foundation to roof) | $45,000 – $130,000 |
| ADU construction (attached or detached) | $90,000 – $220,000 |
| Garage conversion to living space | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Jerith post replacement (per post, with base repair) | $400 – $1,200 |
| Flashing and seam repair at original house line | $1,500 – $5,000 |
What drives the range: whether your foundation is slab-on-grade (common in Fort Lauderdale) or needs piers, whether the city requires hurricane-rated glazing on the new walls, and how much of the existing Jerith structure can be salvaged. Every quote from us includes a written line-item price before work starts, so you know exactly what the parts cost, what the labor costs, and what the permit fees are. No change orders at the door. That’s the Relay Visibility Guarantee, and it’s been how we run since 2005.
DIY or Call Us?
You can safely check a few things yourself: look for white powder at post bases, run a level across the top rail, and photograph any cracks so you can measure whether they’re growing. That tells you if you have a problem and where.
What you should not do is cut into a load-bearing Jerith post or pull a failing one without a temporary support plan. A post that’s carrying roof load can collapse the moment you unbolt it, and the spring-loaded tension in a bound-up frame will release fast. We’ve had to fix a few DIY attempts where the owner ended up with the roof on a bottle jack and a bigger bill than the original repair would have cost. If it’s structural, if it’s corroded at the base, or if water’s involved, call (754) 354-7423 and let us look at it before you touch anything.
FAQs
A properly installed Jerith-framed addition should last 25 to 40 years in Fort Lauderdale, but the weak points are the connections and flashing, not the aluminum. Salt air and humidity attack the fasteners and post bases first, and we routinely see failures at year 8 to 12 on builds where the right stainless fasteners or isolation pads weren’t used. If your addition is older than 10 years, have the post bases and seam flashing inspected once a year. Call (754) 354-7423 and we’ll put eyes on it.
If the corrosion is surface-level and the wall thickness still measures within spec, yes, we can clean, treat, and re-seal a post. Once the wall has lost more than 15 – 20% of its original thickness or the base is compromised, replacement is the honest fix, because a patched post is a false sense of security in a hurricane zone. We’ll show you the measurements and give you a written recommendation either way.
A post-and-base replacement on a typical Fort Lauderdale addition takes one to two days, including temporary support, demolition, new installation, and clean-up. If drywall or stucco needs to be opened to access the connection point, add another day for patching and finishing. Bigger structural repairs or full additions follow a longer schedule, which we lay out in writing before you approve anything.
We stock common residential post sizes, rails, brackets, and stainless fasteners that match Jerith’s specifications, and we can order non-stock profiles within about a week. If you’re looking for gates, hinges, latches, or specialty extrusions, we carry Jerith-compatible options and we can also source parts for KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone installations, since we work with those brands on the interior side.
If you have a Jerith addition or ADU in Fort Lauderdale that’s showing its age, or you’re planning new construction and want it done with the right parts the first time, call (754) 354-7423 for a free estimate. Luca answers his own phone when he’s not on-site, and he’ll tell you straight what it needs. The work either holds up or it doesn’t. We make sure it does.
Written by Luca Romano, Owner & Lead Contractor, Sawyer Remodel Fort Lauderdale at Sawyer Remodel Fort Lauderdale, serving Fort Lauderdale and nearby areas.
