Hurricane Straps vs. Clips: Roof-to-Wall Attachment on Florida's Wind Mitigation Form

What is roof-to-wall attachment on a wind mitigation inspection?

Roof-to-wall attachment is the way the roof framing of a house is anchored to the top of its walls. In most South Florida homes that means wood trusses or rafters resting on a concrete tie beam or a wood top plate, held there by toe nails, clips or hurricane straps. The comparison people search for, hurricane straps vs. clips, matters because Florida's wind mitigation form treats them as different answers, and an insurer can credit them differently.

The reason is uplift. When hurricane winds flow over a house, they pull upward on the roof. The sheathing and the covering catch that suction, the trusses carry it to their ends, and the joint at the top of the wall is where it has to be handed down into the structure. If that joint lets go, a roof can lift off in one piece and leave every room below open to rain. FEMA's wind retrofit guide calls the chain of connections from the roof down to the foundation a continuous load path. The roof-to-wall connection is the link in that chain the wind mitigation form asks about.

On the current form, roof-to-wall attachment is item 6 of nine. It is checked from the attic, it needs a photo or document as proof like every attribute in items 2 through 9, and it is one of the three items graded by the weakest example on the house. This guide stays on that one item. For the visit as a whole, read how a wind mitigation inspection works, and for the rest of the form in plain English, see what each answer on your report means.

The roof-to-wall answers on the 2026 wind mitigation form

The revised form, Rev. 04/26, has been required for inspections on or after April 1, 2026, and it lists nine possible answers for item 6. The first five describe hardware, from the weakest to the strongest. The last four cover what an inspector could not classify, could not identify or could not reach. Before choosing, the inspector sets aside the hip and valley jack trusses within five feet of any inside or outside corner of the roof. Those short members are not used to decide which connection is the weakest.

The minimum conditions every clip and wrap has to meet

Seeing metal is not enough. Before any connection can be graded as a clip, a single wrap or a double wrap, the form makes the inspector confirm that every verified connection meets one of three minimum conditions. A connector that fails all three is graded as toe nails, even though it is metal and even though it is there.

• Condition 1, the standard connector. It is fastened to the truss or rafter with at least three nails; attached to the side or bottom of the wall's top plate, or embedded in the concrete bond beam; sits less than half an inch from the truss or its blocking; any blocking is no more than an inch and a half from the truss; and the metal is free of visible severe corrosion.
• Condition 2, one strap over the top. A single strap that wraps over the truss and is secured to the side of the wall or the bottom of the top plate with at least three nails on each side, also free of visible severe corrosion.
• Condition 3, the purpose-made connector. A manufactured connector or structural fastener installed according to the manufacturer's specifications to reach the tested capacity listed for the answer being claimed. The form adds that every retrofit connector has to meet this third condition.

Each condition matches something you can see in an attic. The nail count comes first, because a strap with empty holes holds only what its nails hold. The half-inch limit catches connectors that were set beside a truss but never brought tight against it. The blocking rule covers framing where the truss does not land next to the strap and a piece of wood was added to bridge the space; that filler has to sit close to the truss. And the corrosion rule recognizes that steel near the ocean loses thickness over decades, so a strap that has rusted badly is no longer the part that was tested.

Notice the word "verified". The conditions apply to connections the inspector actually saw. A house is not graded on hardware that might be hidden behind insulation. It is graded on hardware that was found, counted and photographed.

Hurricane straps vs. clips: how to tell them apart

In everyday speech people call any metal tie a hurricane strap, and hardware stores sell "hurricane clips" that the form might grade as clips, single wraps or something else. The form ignores product names. It starts with one geometric question: does the metal go over the top of the truss?

What a clip looks like

A clip stays on the side. It may be a bent steel bracket nailed to the face of the truss and to the top plate, a short strap cast into the tie beam that rises along one face of the truss and stops below its top edge, or an angle that grabs the truss and the plate without crossing either one. A clip that meets the minimum conditions is still a documented metal connector, and it sits one level above toe nails on the form.

What turns a strap into a wrap

A wrap crosses the top edge of the truss. Picture a strap coming out of the tie beam on the near face of the truss, bent over the top chord and running down the far face. With two nails on one side and one on the other, it is a single wrap. When the far side has no nails, the nail position rules for C and D are not met, so the strap is graded as a clip, and even then it needs three nails to count.

Single wrap vs. double wrap

A double wrap is two of those straps, one rising on each side of the truss, each wrapping over the top and each carrying its own nails. The form also accepts one strap as a double wrap when it wraps over the truss and is nailed down both sides of the wall or under the top plate with at least three nails per side, a detail seen mostly on framed walls. From a distance the two can look alike, so the inspector has to get close enough to see both faces of the truss and count the nails on each.

Why the hip jack exception matters

Hip roofs have short jack trusses that run from the hip line down to the wall near each corner, where the space between the roof and the ceiling is tightest. The form tells inspectors to leave out hip and valley jacks within five feet of an inside or outside corner when they pick the weakest connection, so a lighter connector on one of those does not decide the answer for the whole house. Farther than five feet from the corner, they count like any other truss.

Concrete block homes with a tie beam vs. wood frame walls

Most South Florida houses have concrete block walls finished in stucco, often called CBS, topped by a poured concrete tie beam, also known as a bond beam, with wood trusses above. Embedded straps are set in the tie beam forms before the concrete is poured, so their legs come out of the top of the beam already anchored, and the framing crew nails them to the trusses later. The form's first minimum condition names this detail directly: a connector embedded in the bond beam.

Some block homes have a wood plate bolted on top of the tie beam, with the trusses resting on the wood. Then the question is how each truss is fastened to that plate: toe nails, a clip nailed to the side of the plate, or a strap wrapped under it. The bolts that hold the plate to the concrete are part of the load path too, but item 6 records the connection between the roof framing and the wall it bears on.

Wood frame walls end in a doubled top plate on studs. Connectors there are nailed to the side of the plate or wrapped around its underside, and the single-strap double wrap, nailed down both sides of the wall, is mostly a framed-wall detail. Many houses mix the two: a block first floor under a wood frame second story, or a frame addition behind a block house. Each part is checked on its own, and the weaker part decides the answer.

The structural answer sits apart. Anchor bolts structurally connected, or a reinforced concrete roof, describe buildings where the roof is concrete or the framing is bolted to the structure in an engineered way. You will rarely see it on a single-family house with a wood truss roof, and an inspector should explain exactly what was seen if it appears on yours.

Why the weakest roof-to-wall connection sets the answer

Item 6 asks for the weakest form of roof-to-wall connection, so the inspector is not hunting for the best strap in the attic. The search is for the worst connection that counts. A home with double wraps on every truss of the original house and toe nails on a later addition answers toe nails. A home with single wraps everywhere except the garage, where the trusses were clipped, answers clips.

This is where the history of a house shows up. Additions, enclosed porches, garage conversions and second-story rooms were often built by different crews in different decades, under different codes, and sometimes without a permit. A roof that looks uniform from the street can rest on three generations of hardware. Buyers see the same pattern in other parts of the report, which is why additions and enclosures get a close look among the issues South Florida inspections turn up most often.

Girder trusses deserve a mention. These are the heavier, multi-ply trusses that carry other trusses, typically over a wide opening such as the garage door, and they usually get their own heavier connectors. They sit on the perimeter like any other truss, so the question is the same: does each one meet the definition being claimed?

We look at as many connections as we can safely reach, along every wall, because the answer has to describe the weakest one. The same logic runs through other items on the form. One unprotected window can set the opening protection answer for the whole house, as our guide to impact windows, shutters and garage doors explains.

How to tell if your house has hurricane straps

You can often see the answer yourself, but go carefully. A Florida attic in the afternoon can be dangerously hot, the framing is the only safe place to put your weight, and roofing nails point down through the deck overhead. If any of that makes you hesitate, leave it for the inspection.

• Go early in the morning with a strong flashlight, long sleeves, gloves and a dust mask.
• Step only on the framing or on solid walkboards, never on the drywall between the joists.
• Head for the outside walls. The connections are where the trusses rest on the walls, at the low end of the roof slope, in the tightest part of the attic.
• Look at the side of each truss end. Angled nail heads and no metal mean toe nails. Metal on one face that stops below the top edge is a clip. Metal that crosses over the top is a wrap.
• Check the garage. If it has no finished ceiling, the truss ends and their hardware are often visible from the floor along the top of the walls.
• Keep clear of wiring and junction boxes when you move insulation, and leave wasp nests to a professional.
• Never pry, bend or "fix" a connector. A bent strap is one way a house ends up graded as not installed as intended.

Paper can tell you something too. The building department's permit file may show the date of the original construction permit or a later retrofit. An earlier wind mitigation report shows what another inspector saw, with photos, and whether you can still use it depends on how long a wind mitigation report stays valid and whether anything has changed since. What you see on your own does not go on the form, though. The form needs an inspector's photo or a document as proof.

What else to notice while you are up there

Homeowners who search for a truss inspection usually want to know whether the roof structure is sound, not only whether it is strapped. While you look at the connections, note truss members that were cut or notched, cracked wood, metal gusset plates that have backed out of the joints, dark water stains at the eaves and rust on the hardware. None of those are wind mitigation answers, but each is worth a professional opinion, and a full home inspection covers the attic as part of the house.

How a wind mitigation inspector documents roof-to-wall attachment

Item 6 is decided in the attic, and the documentation follows a routine so the answer can stand up later.

1. Getting in. We find the hatch, make sure it can be opened safely and that the attic can be entered without damaging the ceiling.
2. Working toward the eaves. The connections sit where the roof is lowest, so we move along the framing toward each outside wall we can safely reach.
3. Sorting the hardware. We identify each type of connection present, toe nails, clips, single or double wraps, and where each type is.
4. Counting and checking. For the weakest type, we count the nails on each face, check how tight the connector sits against the truss and any blocking, and look for severe corrosion.
5. Photographing. A close photo shows the nails clearly enough to count, and a wider one shows where in the attic the connection is.
6. Matching paperwork. Retrofit invoices, product documentation or a FORTIFIED certificate are reviewed and attached when they support the answer.

Photos are the evidence, and underwriters read them. A useful roof-to-wall photo shows one connection from an angle where the strap's path, over the truss or beside it, is obvious and the nail heads can be counted. A FORTIFIED Home Roof, Silver or Gold certificate is the one document the form names that can validate this item, with a photocopy attached. Whenever the attic can be entered, every wind mitigation inspection we perform includes photos like these with the signed form, usually delivered the same day.

No attic access, low-slope roofs and deep insulation

Some houses hide their connections. When that happens the form has two honest answers, and neither one documents a strap.

No attic access (answer H)

Flat and low-slope roofs with no attic space, vaulted or cathedral ceilings fastened directly under the roof framing, hatches that were drywalled over during a renovation, and scuttles too small or too blocked to enter all lead here. If nobody can get into the attic, items 5 and 6 cannot be verified at all, and both read no attic access.

Unknown or unidentified (answer G)

The attic is open, but the connection cannot be identified. Blown-in insulation piled to the roof deck at the eaves, spray foam covering the top plates, a shallow pitch that leaves only a few inches of space at the walls, or ductwork and storage platforms in the way can all hide the hardware. Moving a little insulation to see a strap is normal. Tearing apart insulation along the whole perimeter is not, and spray foam is not cut open during a visual inspection.

What can change the answer

Access is the most common fix. A licensed contractor can frame a proper hatch where the ceiling allows one, and a clear path to an existing hatch costs nothing. Documentation is the other route: a FORTIFIED certificate, or retrofit paperwork that shows which connector was installed, by whom and where, weighed by the inspector against what can be seen. Construction plans show what was designed rather than what was built, so how much weight they carry is a judgment for the inspector and, in the end, for the insurer. If you are not sure your attic is reachable, tell us when you book and we will tell you what to expect.

What South Florida homes of different eras usually have

No build year settles the answer, which is exactly why the attic matters. Still, a few patterns help set expectations before the visit.

Three dates organize the history. In Miami-Dade and Broward, the South Florida Building Code was strengthened after Hurricane Andrew with hurricane provisions that took effect in September 1994. Miami-Dade's building code office later described that code as aimed at the weaknesses Andrew exposed in roof systems, opening protection and roof sheathing attachment. Statewide, the Florida Building Code took effect on March 1, 2002, and the wind mitigation form's own building code item uses permit application dates to sort homes into those eras. Homes permitted under the Florida Building Code are also exempt from the reroof retrofit rule described in the next section.

New construction is the easy case. Before insulation and drywall go in, every truss end can be seen from the floor, which is why connectors are one of the things we check during a pre-drywall inspection of a new home. Photos from that stage are worth keeping, because the same attic will be full of insulation a few weeks later.

Wherever you live in Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach County, item 6 works the same way. What changes from one neighborhood to the next is the mix of house ages, the number of additions and the distance to salt water. If you own an older house in Hollywood, our wind mitigation upgrade guide for Hollywood shows where straps fit among the other improvements. Our local pages explain the service city by city.

Can you add hurricane straps to an existing house?

Yes, but it is construction work, not a weekend project, and the form credits it only when it is documented. There are three common routes, and the timing of your next reroof often decides which one fits.

During a reroof: what the Florida Building Code requires

When the roof covering comes off, the tops of the walls can be reached from above, through the eaves or from inside. The Florida Building Code, Existing Building (2023 edition), uses that moment in Section 706.8. When the covering is removed and replaced on an existing building with a wood roof deck that sits in the code's wind-borne debris region, which takes in South Florida, and the building has an insured value of $300,000 or more (or, if it is uninsured or no proof of insured value is presented, a just value of $300,000 or more for property tax purposes), the roof-to-wall connections have to be improved.

The rule has limits. Mandated roof-to-wall retrofits may not add more than 15 percent to the cost of the reroof, and they are not required at all unless the evaluation and installation of connections at the gable ends or at all corners can be done within that 15 percent. Homes permitted under the Florida Building Code are exempt, as are homes where permit and code adoption records show roof-to-wall connections were already required when the house was built. Where the work applies, the code gives priority to exterior corners where the roof members span the farthest, and to gable ends over hip ends unless the hip end is more than one and a half times as wide. Its prescriptive method for gable roofs inspects the trusses within six feet of each gable corner and calls for an approved strap, tie or bracket rated for at least 500 pounds of uplift where a strap is missing or has fewer than four fasteners at either end.

Your roofer and the building department decide how the rule applies to your house. What you can do is ask before you sign: does this job include roof-to-wall work, where, with which connector, and will I receive the paperwork? The answers matter twice, because a reroof can change other items on the form as well, as our guide to updating your wind mitigation after a new roof explains. If the real question is whether the old roof has years left, a roof condition inspection answers that first.

Retrofit connectors and the 2026 form

Without a reroof, connectors can be added from inside the attic or from the eaves, using purpose-made retrofit products designed to fasten to an existing truss and wall. The 2026 form recognizes them by tested capacity: 386 pounds or more for the clip answer, 535 for a single wrap and 891 for a double wrap, installed to the manufacturer's specifications, with site-specific documentation. Ask for that documentation before the work starts: the product, its tested values, the installation instructions followed and the trusses it covers.

Gable ends and the whole load path

A gable end is the flat triangle of wall that rises to the ridge, and it is exposed to the full force of the wind. FEMA's 2023 wind retrofit guide places strengthening gable end walls in its intermediate package of retrofits and developing a continuous load path in its advanced package. The wind mitigation form has no separate question for gable bracing, so bracing alone does not change item 6, but gable ends are where the reroof rule tells contractors to start. At the top of the voluntary scale, the IBHS FORTIFIED Gold designation requires an engineered continuous load path, which includes the roof-to-wall connections.

Who does the work

A licensed contractor, under a building permit, with a design by a licensed engineer whenever the job goes beyond a prescriptive fix. FEMA's guide recommends that homeowners work with an evaluator, a contractor and, when necessary, a registered design professional. The permit and its final inspection become part of your proof. After the final, book a new wind mitigation inspection so the form describes the house as it is now.

Help paying for it

Florida's My Safe Florida Home program has offered free wind mitigation inspections and grants of up to $10,000 toward approved upgrades, and reinforcing roof-to-wall connections is among the improvements it lists. Funding and application windows open and close, so check mysafeflhome.com for the current status, and read our guide to the My Safe Florida Home grants to see how the steps fit together.

Salt air, roof leaks and corroded hurricane straps

Galvanized steel lasts a long time in a dry attic. Near the coast, though, the attic air carries salt, and a roof leak at the eaves drips straight onto the tops of the walls where the straps are. That is why the minimum conditions include being free of visible severe corrosion, and why a strap that has scaled or rusted through can move a house from wraps down to toe nails on the form.

Light surface rust is common and is not the same thing as severe corrosion. What concerns an inspector is metal that flakes in layers, has visibly lost thickness or has rusted away around the nail holes, often beside water stains on the truss or the top of the wall. The cause needs fixing before the connector does: a roof leak, an open joint at the fascia, or moisture from a duct or an A/C drain line.

After a hurricane or a strong storm, the eaves deserve a look for the same reason. Wind-driven rain gets in where the roof meets the wall, and wet framing and rusting hardware start there. Our guide to checking your home after a hurricane covers the attic and the rest of the house.

Six myths about hurricane straps and clips

• "Any metal strap counts as a hurricane strap." Only connectors that meet the minimum conditions count, and the form grades them by shape and nailing, not by what the box called them.
• "My house was built in the 1990s, so it has double wraps." The build year is a hint, not proof. The answer comes from what is verified in the attic.
• "Clips and straps are the same thing on the form." A clip does not wrap over the truss and a wrap does. They are different answers.
• "One good strap at the corner sets the answer." The weakest verified connection does, after setting aside hip and valley jacks within five feet of a corner.
• "I can add straps myself and have them counted." Retrofit connectors must be purpose-made and installed to the manufacturer's specifications with documentation, and the work needs a permit and a licensed contractor.
• "Straps come with a fixed discount." The form contains no dollar figures. Your insurer decides what each answer is worth under its own filed rates.

The bottom line

Hurricane straps vs. clips is not a question of names. On Florida's wind mitigation form, roof-to-wall attachment is graded by what the metal does: whether it wraps over the truss, how many nails hold it on each side, how tight and how sound it is, and whether the weakest connection on the house meets the same standard. Knowing that lets you read your own attic, ask better questions before a reroof and avoid paying for a retrofit nobody can document. If you want your connections verified and photographed, Peter Lemos, a Certified Master Inspector® and InterNACHI Certified Wind Mitigation Inspector, inspects homes across Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Call or text (954) 297-0317 or request a quote online, and you will have a firm price before anything is scheduled. You can also read more about our wind mitigation inspections in South Florida.

About the author

Peter Lemos, Certified Master Inspector®

Owner and lead inspector of Global Home Inspectors in Hollywood, FL. Peter holds InterNACHI certifications in wind mitigation, 4-point and mold inspection and has served Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties since 2008.