Seawall Inspection & Repair in Fort Lauderdale, FL

The rule raised the old 3.9-foot standard from 2016 to 5 feet. Whether it applies to your wall depends on whether the wall is new, more than half damaged, or letting water onto a neighbor or a street, and that is a condition question before it is a height question. The diver cleans the oysters and barnacles off, inspects the wall, and documents its condition, which is what a lender wants and what a buyer's contract now points at.

Las Olas Isles and Seven Isles walls hold dredged 1920s land in place and carry heavy growth in slow-speed water; New River walls in Rio Vista sit in a tidal estuary; Harbor Beach walls near the port take 2-to-4-knot currents. Cracks in any of them let sediment out from under a yard or pool deck, and they are filled deep with custom cement tubes that reach the back of the crack. The repair is quoted free, in person, and we recommend an inspection every 1–2 years.

The city's 3.9-foot seawall standard dated from 2016. The staff proposal of November 2022 carried the county's 4-foot interim option for pre-2035 permits designed to reach 5 feet by 2050 and required the county tidal-barrier standard to be disclosed in sale contracts after December 31, 2022, and the 5-foot rule was adopted on March 23, 2023. Port Everglades itself was dredged out of Lake Mabel, and the walls nearest it in Harbor Beach take the strongest current in the city. For a seller in Las Olas Isles or Rio Vista, the practical sequence is: clean, inspect, document, fill the crack if there is one, and hand the buyer's lender the paperwork.

A Fort Lauderdale seller now has two dates to think about: the 2023 rule that set 5 feet NAVD88 for new, badly damaged or flooding walls, and the disclosure requirement in sale contracts since the end of 2022. The $250 inspection is how the seller answers the buyer's lender Las Olas Isles and Rio Vista walls are the most common bookings; Harbor Beach walls near the port take the hardest water. And a wall found more than half damaged is one we say so about, because that is where the 5-foot rule starts.

Fort Lauderdale seawalls face the New River, the Intracoastal Waterway, the Middle River and the Stranahan River. Las Olas Isles, Rio Vista, Harbor Beach, Coral Ridge and the rest of ZIP codes 33301, 33304, 33305, 33308, 33315 and 33316: cleaned first, then inspected and documented.

The written report covers the wall's condition, which is what buyers, agents and many lenders want before closing on a waterfront home.

• Overall condition once the growth is off.
• Cracks letting sediment out from behind the wall: the cause of a sinking yard, deck or patio.
• Growth that was eating the wall or hiding damage.
• The recommended repair, with a free in-person quote.

How often a seawall should be looked at. Every 1–2 years, cleaned and inspected together, and after any named storm; seawalls get installed and forgotten until the yard loses sediment, and thick growth covers the crack that started it.

Full seawall inspection and repair guide