Screen porch design

You may wish to create your own screen porch design. In most cases its not that hard to do. In this section I will layout some important parts of your screen porch plan.

We shall discuss construction methods and some methods that will make the job quick and easy.

A major component in your screen porch design or screen pool enclosure would be to make use of aluminum screen frames instead of nailing the insect mesh to cleats mounted on the the screen porch supports.

Using Aluminum screen frames in your screen porch plan makes it easy to take the screens down when they get damaged. You can have them repaired without having to dissassemble the whole porch. It also makes it easier to paint the screen porch, since you can remove the screens and paint the whole porch without having to worry about getting paint on the screens. It also makes it easy to change the type of screen you are using very easily. You could swap in couple of solar screen panels to keep out direct sunlight for example.

The trouble with screen mesh that is nailed onto cleats is that over time the nails get rusty, the cleats get rotten and everything tends to fall apart when all you want to do is replace a single screen.

In your screen porch plan it is good to incorporate a dividing rail at chair top height so that no screen cloth is in the way when chairs or tables are moved around. It saves a lot of weat and tear. Having screens from floor to ceiling looks nice and is possible to achieve but they are very easy to walk through.

In your screen porch plan try to stick with 36 to 48 inch spacing between your support columns. That way you can easily find screen cloth to fit. Making a column spacing greater than 48" means you will have to hunt around for custom widths which most likely will only be available if you buy a whole roll of screen cloth.

Click the link for information on three sided patio screen rooms

Although the majority of screen porches are built out of wood, in recent times aluminum and vinyl building materials have come into use. These materials do not rot like wood. They also have the potential to look better longer. They also eliminate many steps in the screen porch contruction, by using one single extrusion which replaces a wooden stud, cleat and decorative moulding and associated nailing. They also have manufactured connectors to aid in joining everything together. Usually Contractors install aluminum or vinyl screen porches and the materials are not available through building centers like The Home Depot. There are specialty aluminum and vinyl fabricators who supply the contractors but it is not always impossible for the homeowner to purchase and work with these materials if they are able to procure them.