Screen Door Hardware

If you don’t know what a screen door is, or if you have never had to buy any screen door hardware before, then this article is for you (particularly if you are looking to buy your first few items of screen door hardware or if you’re simply interested in what they are and what they can be used for).

To put it simply, a screen door is an extra door that fits onto the outside of an exterior door on your house (usually either a back or a front door). This door is usually made up of a thick wire mesh on the inside and a think steel frame on the outside, holding the net mesh together. The type of screen door hardware that is used allows you to easily open these doors, but it has a spring on it so that it won’t stay open and so that it’ll close on its own.

Screen door are primarily used in hot climates (such as many of the southern states in America) where people like to have the option of leaving their front or back door open so that air can come in (especially in the cooler evenings) but so you don’t let any bugs or creepy crawlies in (that is what the wire mesh is for and that is why the screen door hardware allows the door to close on its own – so you physically can’t accidentally leave it open). Please note that screen doors aren’t there for protection of security reasons (unless you count protecting against spiders, snakes and bugs protection) – that’s that your main front or back door is for. These doors are not substitutes for the real thing, they simply allow you to have those doors open on long hot summer nights.

These doors are very lightweight and quick and easy to make, making them cheap solutions for most families to use instead of an air conditioning unit. While the benefits of a screen door aren’t as good as air conditioning your house, it is much, much cheaper to do it this way and it is ideal for low income families.

The thing about screen doors and screen door hardware is that much of it you can actually make yourself (providing you have the right parts and the right expertise to know how to fashion them into the right shapes). Most of the parts that you’ll need can be picked up extremely cheaply from your local scrap yard, and most of the screen door hardware (such as the spring and the hinges) can be bought cheaply from almost any DIY shop.

While you don’t have to make these doors yourself, it is a fun thing to do. If, however, this isn’t your preference, you can simply go down to your local DIY supplier and pick up a screen door and all of the relevant screen door hardware that you require for a low price and either install it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you (which is not my preference but it certainly saves time and effort if you don’t mind spending the money on it).