Rescreening: the repair that fixes most screens
The majority of screen failures are mesh failures: tears from pets and furniture, mesh gone slack and billowing, edges pulling from the spline channel, or fabric simply aged brittle by sun until a touch goes through it. Rescreening replaces the fabric in your existing frame: the spline comes out, the old mesh goes, new mesh is rolled in under fresh spline and trimmed. Mesh choice matters more than it used to: standard fiberglass for ordinary duty; pet-resistant mesh — several times thicker, and genuinely claw-tolerant — for homes with dogs and cats; fine-mesh insect screen where the local problem is tiny biting insects rather than houseflies; and solar screen where a west-facing door bakes a room. If your frame is straight and its corners are sound, rescreening restores the door for a fraction of replacement, and it is the repair we recommend most — because it is the one most screens actually need. Our repair-or-replace guide gives you the decision in checklist form.
Frames, corners and the bowed-screen problem
Frames fail differently. Aluminum screen frames bend when the door is forced, walked into, or used as a climbing structure; their corner keys crack; and a frame bowed in the middle will never hold mesh tension evenly again — rescreening a bowed frame produces a drum that pops its spline by August. Frame assessment is therefore step one of every screen visit: sight down the rails, check the corners, roll the door. Straighten what straightens, replace what does not, and never sell mesh into a frame that cannot hold it. The screen's own rollers and guides wear too — a screen that falls out of its track or drags is usually asking for its small wheels and a track clean, the screen-scale version of our roller and track work, and those parts are cheap and quick while we are there.
Latches, handles and the screen that will not stay shut
A screen that drifts open invites everything it exists to exclude. Screen latches are light mechanisms and they tire: springs lose their snap, plastic catches round over, and the strike on the jamb loosens in its screws. Renewal is straightforward but fussy — the latch, strike and handle are a matched little system, and aligning them on a lightweight door that flexes is its own craft. While we are on hardware: screen handles crack at their mounts from being pulled at an angle, and the inside latch lever is a known casualty in homes with enthusiastic dogs. All of it is truck stock, all of it is same-visit, and all of it is tested by actually living with the door for a minute — open, close, latch, drift check — before the visit ends.
When replacement is the honest answer
Replacement earns its price when the frame is bent in more than one place, when corners are cracked through, when the door's size or track is nonstandard and the frame has rotted or corroded at the bottom rail, or when you are rescreening the same failing frame for the third time. New sliding screens are built or ordered to your opening — measured, not guessed — in frame finishes that match the door, with the mesh chosen for your household: pet mesh at dog height is a configuration we fit often, sometimes as a split spec with standard mesh above. A new screen on good rollers, properly adjusted, is a ten-second glide and a positive latch: the screen door as it was supposed to be. If that is what yours needs, we will show you exactly why the old one cannot get there — bowed rail in hand — rather than simply asserting it.
Screens and the glass door behind them
Screen visits often surface the glass door's own complaints — the screen was masking a dragging panel, or the homeowner mentions the latch fight while we work. Because our crews are sliding door specialists rather than screen-only contractors, the same visit can assess the glass door's rollers, track and lock (our core repair work) and quote anything found, in writing, with no obligation attached. Many customers bundle the two deliberately at our tune-up: one visit, both doors moving and latching like they should.
Keeping a screen alive
Screens die of sun, claws and force, in that order — and two of the three are manageable. Mesh stays tighter and lasts longer when the door is closed by its handle rather than pushed on the fabric; pet mesh buys years in animal households; and a screen that starts drifting or dragging should be adjusted early, while it is a roller and not a frame. When the mesh does go, it goes honestly — and now you know the checklist that decides between a roll of new fabric and a new door.