In South Florida and well beyond, the impact window and door company you pick to outfit your home makes, well, an impact. A new product is helping sea turtle nesting as well. Reece Windows & Doors is the brainchild of Michael Reece, Sr. The company was born in Winston Salem, N.C. in 1972. In 2005, he and Chris Garner opened up shop in Florida, and the business hasn’t looked back. Reece, Sr. passed away in 2018, and since then, his son, Randy, has worked with Garner at its helm.
Its headquarters is in St. Petersburg and there are now six total offices throughout the Sunshine State, including Tampa, Lakeland, Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota and Fort Myers. The company employs 180 people across its operations, primarily focused on residential vinyl impact window as well as exterior and sliding glass door installation and service. The company primarily works with Regency brand windows and Jeld-Wen doors for its diverse installs.
“The longevity of our company has boiled down to how well we take care of our customers,” says Garner. “Most of our windows we can have installed in six to eight weeks, and we offer a number of perks like free parts for life, a lifetime warranty on our products, free service and we charge no labor fees for most repairs. A lot of people out there put their trust in our company and there’s a reason we’ve been in business longer than Home Depot.”
Garner says a game-changer for the company and customers has been the Reece app, which allows folks to see when materials have been ordered/received, track the progress of jobs and communicate directly with the full team involved with a project. In 2023, the company exceeded $55 million in total installs and, on average, works on more than 2,500 homes per year.
“Here in Florida with hurricanes getting stronger – and it seems we’re seeing more of them – windows and doors really are the most critical things on a home,” says Garner. “A bonus that a lot of people don’t often think of is that they can help protect from burglars, too. It’s nearly impossible to break that glass. Plus, there’s an energy-efficient element to it all, with most of the glass we install reflecting 90 percent of the sun rays back.”
Beyond heat and hurricanes, another quintessentially Florida element that the Reece lineup of products addresses is sea turtles. Up and down both coasts of Florida, local jurisdictions have light transmittance mandates on homes near the sands, where loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles nest.
Come sea turtle nesting season – March 1 through October 31 – artificial lighting has been found to interfere with the natural hatching process. Newly hatched turtles use the natural light of the night sky to guide them to the sea within a matter of minutes for survival and artificial lighting can significantly distract that process. Thus, a special “Turtle Glass” has been created to satisfy mandates and ultimately stop that interior light from glaring. On the technology, Garner says, “so, yes, helping out the turtles is a very big deal for us, too.”
For more information on Reece Windows & Doors, visit https://reecewindows.com.
