Window screen repair and rescreening in Phoenix

We repair damaged screens and rescreen frames with new mesh. That is the whole of what we do with screens, and it is worth saying up front that solar screens and security screens are not part of it.

Call (602) 777-3717 Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm. Bring us the count of frames and the rough size of the largest one and we can tell you how the job is likely to run.

What goes wrong with a screen in this climate?

Four failures cover nearly every screen we see, and they look different from each other once you know what you are looking at.

• Mesh torn or pushed out of the frame. A dog leaning on a screen door, a cat working at a corner, a kid pressing on a bedroom window. The mesh either splits or pops out of its groove along one edge while the frame stays fine.
• Frame bent, or a corner come apart. Screen frames are light aluminum held square by plastic corner keys pressed into the ends. Drop a frame, lean on it, or leave it propped against a wall in the sun and either the rail bows or a key cracks and the corner opens up.
• Spline dried out and shrunk. The spline is the rubber cord pressed into the frame channel to hold the mesh. Sun turns it hard and brittle, it shrinks, and the mesh works its way loose so the screen sags or billows in the wind. The mesh itself may be perfectly good.
• Sun rotted mesh. Fiberglass mesh that has taken years of direct exposure goes chalky and loses its strength. You touch it and it opens up under your finger. This is the one homeowners misread as a small tear, patch, and then watch fail again a foot away.

Two of those are mesh problems, one is a frame problem, and one is a spline problem. They get priced and fixed differently, which is why we look before quoting. If spline, corner key and sash are unfamiliar words, our window terminology page has the rest of them.

Why do screens fail so much faster here?

Ultraviolet light is the reason, and Phoenix delivers more of it than almost anywhere in the country. We average around 300 sunny days a year, and a west or south facing screen takes that exposure at close to full strength for eight months of it.

Sunlight breaks down the polymer in spline and the coating on fiberglass mesh. In a mild, cloudy climate a screen might sit in a window for twenty years and still be serviceable. Here, screens on exposed elevations are a consumable item, closer to weatherstripping than to a window. They wear out, they get replaced, and that is not a defect in the screen or a sign anyone did the job badly.

Two things follow from that. First, if one screen on the sunny side of the house has gone chalky, the rest on that side are the same age and the same story, so doing them together on a single visit costs less overall than doing them one at a time as each one fails. Second, north facing screens on the same house are often untouched, and we will tell you when a frame does not need our attention yet.

What mesh can you rescreen with?

Two, and they answer different problems.

Standard fiberglass mesh

The default, and the right answer for most windows. It is a coated fiberglass weave, it goes into the channel cleanly, it keeps insects out, and it is the least visible of the options from inside the room. It is also the least expensive to fit. What it will not do is stand up to a determined dog, and on a fully exposed elevation it will chalk out eventually the way the mesh before it did.

Pet resistant mesh

A heavier vinyl coated polyester weave, several times stronger than standard fiberglass, made for doors and low windows where an animal leans, scratches or pushes. It takes claws without splitting, and it survives being bumped by people carrying things through a patio door.

The trade-offs are real and we would rather you hear them now. The strands are thicker, so you see the mesh more from inside and the view through it is slightly darker. It costs more per frame than fiberglass. And it is stiffer to roll into the spline channel, so it works better in a sound frame than in one that is already bowed. On a house with a dog, put it in the patio screen door and the two windows the dog uses, and leave fiberglass in the bedrooms.

Can you fix a bent frame, or does it need a new one?

A gentle bow in one rail can usually be worked back and the frame reused, and a corner that has come apart is a straightforward fix when the aluminum is undamaged: new corner keys, square it up, rescreen it.

Some frames are past that, and straightening them is throwing good time after bad:

• A rail creased or folded rather than bowed. Once the aluminum has kinked, it has a memory and it goes back to the kink.
• A frame that has been out of square long enough to twist in two directions. It will not sit flat in the opening and the mesh will pull unevenly.
• Corners where the rail ends themselves have split, so a new key has nothing solid to press into.
• Frames sun-baked to the point where the aluminum is pitted and the paint has powdered off, which is often the same frames carrying the rotted mesh.

When the frame goes, we build a new one to the same opening and screen it. That is still screen work and it does not touch the window itself. Frame damage on the window, as opposed to on the screen, is a different subject and lives on our residential window repair page.

How do you measure for a rescreen, and what do you need from me?

If we are rescreening the frame you already have, the frame is the measurement, so there is nothing for you to work out. What helps us most before the visit is knowing the count and the biggest size, since a patio screen door and eight bedroom windows are two different scheduling problems.

When a frame has to be rebuilt, the measurement comes off the opening rather than the old frame, because a frame that has bowed is no longer a reliable copy of the hole it sits in. Our technician measures the opening height and width, the channel depth the screen sits in, and how the screen is held: pressure clips, tension springs at the top, plunger pins, or a track on a slider.

What we ask from you is straightforward. Tell us how many frames there are, whether any are on a second story, whether a dog or a cat is the reason for the damage, and if you already know you want the heavier mesh somewhere. If a frame is already out and sitting in the garage, leave it flat rather than upright, because a leaning frame bends under its own weight in the heat.

What about sliding door screens?

A patio screen door is the hardest working screen in a Phoenix house and the one most likely to be torn, off its track, or both. We rescreen those, replace the corner keys, and sort the small wheels that carry them.

Those wheels matter to understand, because it is a common source of confusion on the phone. A screen door rides on its own small rollers running in a shallow rail at the top and bottom of the opening, and they are a completely different part from the heavy rollers under the glass panel next to it. New rollers on the glass door do nothing for a screen that will not roll, and the reverse is equally true. Rollers under the glass panel are covered on our sliding door roller and track repair page, and our sliding glass door repair page covers the rest of the door, meaning glass, latches and keepers.

One thing we look at while we are there: a screen door that keeps jumping its rail is sometimes telling you the glass door beside it has dropped and pushed the frame out of alignment. It is worth having both looked at in the same visit rather than fixing the screen twice.

Do you sell solar screens or security screens?

No, and we are not the company to call for either one.

Solar screens are a shading product. They use a dense woven or knitted fabric to cut a large share of the sun before it hits the glass, they are specified by shade percentage and by elevation, and companies that fit them do it as their main line of work. Security screens are a different animal again, a steel or stainless mesh in a heavy hinged frame, anchored into the structure, sold and installed to a standard we do not work to.

What we do is repair the screens you have and rescreen frames with insect mesh, including the heavier pet resistant weave. If a solar or security screen frame comes back to you damaged, the company that supplied it is the right call, since the mesh and the frames are theirs.

Being clear about that saves you a visit. It also fits how we describe the rest of our scope: we do not fabricate window frames, and we do not do stucco, drywall or painting around an opening either.

What drives the cost of screen work?

We do not publish figures for residential work, because a single bedroom rescreen and a whole house of frames with a patio door are not the same job. These are the things that move the number:

• How many frames are being done on one visit. The travel is the same whether it is one or ten, so batching them is where homeowners save.
• Which mesh goes in. Pet resistant costs more per frame than standard fiberglass.
• Whether the existing frame is reusable or has to be rebuilt.
• The size of the frame, with patio screen doors sitting at the top of that range.
• Whether hardware comes into it, such as screen door rollers, corner keys, tension springs or plunger pins.

How the quote and the warranty work

A technician looks at the frames on site and writes the quote there. Nothing is owed until you have it, and there is no charge for coming out to look.

Screen work does not usually involve a deposit. The 50% deposit we take applies where glass is being cut to your opening and cannot be resold to anyone else, and mesh and screen frames do not fall into that. If glass and screens are on the same quote, the deposit applies to the glass portion.

Our workmanship carries a lifetime limited warranty for as long as you own the property. Mesh itself is a wearing item in this sun, and we will be honest with you about that rather than pretend a screen is permanent. We have been working glass and screens in the Valley since 2010, and we cover a 50 mile radius from 4202 E Elwood St #21, Phoenix, AZ 85040, which is a working shop rather than a place to visit, so the work happens at your property.

Questions homeowners ask about screens

Who repairs window screens in the Phoenix area?

We do, alongside the glass work, and we have since 2010. Screen frames come to your house rather than you carrying them anywhere, and a batch of frames is normally handled on one visit.

Where do you do the rescreening, at my house or at your shop?

At your property in most cases, which keeps your windows covered and saves you handling frames. Larger batches sometimes go back to the shop and return on a second visit, and we will tell you which applies when we see how many frames there are.

Can you patch a small tear instead of rescreening?

You can, and on newer mesh it holds. On sun rotted mesh a patch is a waste of your money, because the material around the patch has the same age and the next tear is weeks away. Push gently on the mesh a foot from the hole. If it gives, rescreen it.

How long does a rescreen take?

A standard window frame is a short job, and a technician doing several in one visit works through them quickly. Rebuilding a frame from scratch takes longer, and a patio screen door with roller work sits somewhere in between.

Will pet mesh stop my dog completely?

It stops claws and leaning, which is what destroys standard fiberglass. It is not armor, and a large dog that runs at a screen door repeatedly will eventually push the frame out of square even when the mesh holds. Pair it with a pet door if the dog wants through.

Do I need screens on windows I never open?

No. Screens exist to let you open a window without letting insects in, and a fixed picture window has no use for one. Homeowners sometimes want the elevation to look consistent from the street, which is a fair reason to keep them, and just as fair a reason to leave a broken one off.

My screen frame has no spline groove on one side. What is that?

Some screens are built with the mesh captured in a channel rather than splined, and a few older aluminum windows use a screen that slides in a track with no removable mesh at all. Send us a photo of the corner and we can tell you which you have before the visit.

Can you make a screen for a window that never had one?

Usually yes, as long as the window has somewhere for the screen to sit or be clipped. Our technician measures the opening and the channel depth. If the window has no provision for a screen at all, we will tell you that instead of forcing something onto it.

Book screen work

Call (602) 777-3717 Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm with the number of frames and what has happened to them, and we will schedule a technician to measure and quote. See residential window and glass services for the rest of what we handle at the house, including dual pane glass replacement when the glass behind the screen needs attention too.

Which cities do we cover?

We work across the Valley, inside 50 miles of the shop on Elwood Street. Start with your city for what we see most in the housing stock there.