by Tina Golden

Created on: September 28, 2007

If you pay someone to fix your damaged aluminum window screens, you'll generally pay $10-20 per window. Someone like me, with a large house that has a lot of old windows, could end up paying a small fortune. Since you can purchase the tools and materials for many windows for less than $40, clearly you'll save a lot of money by learning to do it yourself. Fortunately, this is an easy home repair project that anyone can learn and master quickly.

To start with you will need a roll of screening material. You have a choice of fiberglass or aluminum screening. While fiberglass screening costs about 25% less initially, I have found it to be much less durable than the aluminum screening. Not only do you have to repair it more often, the fiberglass material is more difficult to obtain a clean professional look to your finished project. Since I prefer the aluminum screening, the directions I am going to give you are based on using the metal screening. A large roll ( 36" x 25' ) will only run you about $25 at the home supply store and will do many average sized screens.

You may need to buy new spline for your screen windows, also. Spline is the rubber piece that holds the screen in place. Before buying supplies, check the existing spline on your windows. If it's not very dry and brittle, you will be able to re-use it for your repair job. The screens I just replaced are at least 20 years old and the spline was fine. If you do have to replace it, take a piece with you to the store to ensure that you get the right size. You are concerned with the width of the spline as windows can be different. Using the wrong size spline will be difficult or impossible to work with.

The only tools you will need are a small paintbrush, a common household butter knife, scissors, a utility knife and a spline roller. A spline roller is a hand tool specially designed for replacing screens. It is about 6" long with a roller wheel at each end. If you look closely, you will see a difference between the two wheels. One roller wheel has a concave edge, which means it curves in. The other wheel has a convex edge, meaning it curves out. (To clarify this point, the first part of my parentheses is concave, while the closing end of my parentheses is convex.)

Now that you've assembled your materials and tools, let's start repairing your first window screen. Use the butter knife to gently pry the spline out of the groove, beginning at the starting corner. Slowly pull the old spline from the groove all the way

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>