Repairing A wood Screen Door
Screen doors take the summer abuse more than anything else in the house. Between the kids pushing into the screen and the dog the screen doesn’t have a chance. Here’s a few tips on replacing a screen in a wood screen door.
Repairing The Screen
Remove the small wood ground strips that cover the edge of the screen. I use a stiff putty knife or a very small pry bar to do this. These wood pieces are thin and fragile so be careful or you’ll end need to make new ones.
These strips are usually fastened by small brad nails or staples. Once the strips are removed you will need to pull the fasteners.
Here I use my end pliers to remove the staples.
Types of Screen
There are a few types of screen available depending on what your doing; fiberglass, aluminum, copper bronze, No-see-um for tiny insects, pet screen, Pollen TEC, and clear advantage screen material.
I use aluminum in screen doors because it is stronger than fiberglass and does not tear as easily.
Stretch the screen over the opening and cut three sides it to fit. I always leave extra at one end for pulling the screen tight.
I use a screen roller to embed the screen into the door grove. Some doors do not have this groove so just skip this step.
Then I staple the screen and then pull the screen tight on the other end – holding it in place with clamps. I try to continue to pull the screen as tight as I staple, keeping constant pressure.
The goal is to have a taunt, wrinkle free screen.
This is the other end or last part to be stapled. I leave extra here to help me pull the screen tight trimming it off later.
Once the screen is stapled I make sure all the staples are flat against the screen and not sticking up where they may get into the way of the wood strips.
Cut off any extra or protruding screen.
Small 1″ staples are my choice for fastening the wood strips back into the door but brads work too.
Installing staples into the strips. The strips go in real tight by design. To install them you sometimes need to bend the center of the strip slightly to get the ends in place and then release the pressure on the bend letting the strip snap into position.
The last wood piece is installed and stapled in place. The staple holes can be filled with wood putty and painted.
Screen installed back in the door and ready for the next child or dog assault. Note the push bar installed at child height on the screen door.
Having one of these definitely reduces the amount of times I replace the screen but there is always the exception as in my case here……
