Building codes - do they improve windows from breakage?
When we were looking at houses in TV, our sales rep said that all homes built in recent years complied with the new Florida building codes to improve their resilience to hurricanes. Included in this added protection, according to him, was a new standard that windows must adhere to in terms of resisting breakage from blown debris.
We just had a window film salesman give us a pitch for a 3M product that will keep the window from shattering into flying pieces if struck by a projectile (in addition to providing protection from heat gain and UV penetration). He claimed that all windows in TV have no inherent shatter resistance - i.e., that they are no better than they were 20 years ago. When I told him what our sales rep said about the Florida building code that pertains to windows he said that our sales rep was wrong/lying.
Does anyone know for sure which sales person was telling the truth? If the TV sales rep was correct, can anyone point me to the building code that specifies this?
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