Screen Door Replacement

	Screen door replacement is something you may be faced with if your screen door has just lost its last battle with the family dog. But go to your local building center and you are likely to find out that new sliding screen doors are something no one seems to want to bother helping you with. Did you not know you are supposed to buy a whole new patio door every time your screen door breaks ! Well not really, perhaps it's just that your sliding screen door replacement has to made to fit your patio door frame. There is no standard height or width. Just a lot of similiar heights and widths.
Sliding screen doors also come in two frame types. Rollformed aluminum and Extruded aluminum. Rollformed screen door replacements are the cheaper type. Most builders use these to keep costs down. Unfortunately once they start to get worn they get loose, come out of square and get bent in half. Usually in that order. You want a door that will last longer and be more durable. An extruded aluminum screen door replacement is a much better choice if you want something thats going to last. Extruded aluminum screen doors are made of thicker material than rollformed doors and have frames with strengthening ribs to prevent them from bending easily when Fido crashes into it. As well, look for a door that has ball bearing rollers. Most screen doors use nylon rollers but these tend to get brittle with age and exposure to weather. It's a real pain when you spend good money fixing your screen only to have the rollers break apart when you are getting the door back in. Steel rollers will put up with more abuse. They also roll a lot better as far as I am concerned. Extruded aluminum doors are not indestructible but theydo give great service with normal care. If your home building center can get you a new screen door, There are a number of places that sell "knocked down" screen doors in kit form that you can put together yourself The instructions that follow are for putting together one of my screen door kits but the instructions are pretty generic to just about all knock down screen doors. If no one sells one in your are please contact me and I will supply you a door to your specifications.
Here is a list of parts that come in a knockdown screen door kit: There should be 2 long vertical rails 2 short horizontal rails 4 die cast aluminum corners 4 ball bearing rollers 1 screen door handle
	Using a rubber mallet, hammer the corner into the end of one of the short rails until it stops. It should be a tight fit. If the corner fits loosely in the screen door frame, replace the frame. You need tight corners to hold the door together properly
	Continue using the rubber mallet to hammer in the corners into both ends of the bottom rail
	Continue using the mallet until all 4 corners are installed in both the horizontal rails
	Take one of the horizontal rails with both corners installed and use the rubber mallet to hammer on the bottom of the rail to push the exposed end of the corner into one of the vertical rails. Make sure the miter joint matches up perfectly after hammering the two rails together.  Repeat the procedure on the opposite side of the horizontal rail using the other vertical rail.
	Repeat the procedure by hammering the remaining horizontal rail onto the ends of the two vertical rails.
	After the frame is completely assembled , install the rollers. Hook the long spring on theroller into the cavity of the horizontal rail as shown in the picture. Twist the roller against the spring so the pin fits into the notch in the corner. Let go of the roller and it should snap into the cavity with the roller sticking out a small amount. Push on the roller to make sure it moves up and down freely.

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