Screens Are Only as Good as the Frame
New mesh on a bent frame is money wasted — screens cannot be tensioned right on twisted aluminum, and they will pop out in the first storm. Salt air near the bay and the Gulf eats fasteners: screws seize, latches crumble, and spline dries out. Frame and hardware work is the unglamorous foundation every screen job depends on.
What We Repair
- Bent frame members. Aluminum beams bent by storms, falling branches, or accidents — straightened where possible, replaced where not.
- Corroded fasteners. Seized and crumbling screws drilled out and replaced with hardware suited to salt air.
- Spline replacement. Dried, cracked spline that is letting panels pop loose — replaced throughout the affected areas.
- Connections. Loose joints where the cage meets itself or the house — tightened and re-secured.
- Latches and closers. Door hardware that has given up — replaced and adjusted.
Repair vs. Structural Rebuild
There is a line between repair and rebuild. A few bent members and bad fasteners? Repair. A collapsed roof section, widespread corrosion through the aluminum, or a cage pulling away from the house? That can be structural work — possibly engineered, possibly permitted. We will tell you straight which side of the line your enclosure is on, and we will not sell you screens for a frame that cannot hold them.
Salt Air Is the Enemy
Homes near the water see hardware fail years before inland homes. If you are bayside or beachside, budget for hardware attention as regular maintenance — and ask us about fastener choices made for the coast. Our maintenance guide covers the inspection routine.
Our Process: Inspection to Solid Frame
- Structural walkthrough. We inspect every member we can reach — beams, columns, connections to the house, roof sections — looking for bends, corrosion, loose connections, and failed fasteners. We photograph what we find.
- Written quote, repair vs. rebuild. You get an itemized quote and an honest assessment: this is repairable, or this has crossed into structural work. If it is structural, we explain exactly why and what that path looks like.
- Straighten or replace. Bent members get straightened where the aluminum allows; creased, cracked, or corroded-through members get replaced with matching profiles.
- Hardware renewal. Failed fasteners get drilled out and replaced with coastal-appropriate hardware. Spline channels get fresh spline where it is failing.
- Re-tension check. After frame work, adjacent screens get checked — a straightened frame can change panel tension, and we re-seat anything that needs it.
What Frame and Hardware Work Costs
Hardware renewal — fasteners, latches, spline — is the affordable end: often a few hundred dollars added to a service visit. Straightening or replacing individual frame members costs more, scaling with how many members and how hard they are to reach (roof work costs more than ground-level work). Full structural rebuilds are a different category entirely, quoted as projects. Starting ranges only — your written estimate after inspection is the real number, free and fixed before we start.
Spline: The Part Nobody Thinks About
Spline is the rubber cord wedged into the frame channel that holds the mesh in place. It dries out, cracks, and shrinks with age — and when it goes, panels pop loose in the wind even though the mesh itself is fine. It is also the most common shortcut in cheap rescreens: reusing old spline to save an hour. We replace spline with every panel we touch, sized to the mesh and the channel. It is a small material cost that decides whether screens stay put in a storm.
The Salt-Air Hardware Problem, in Detail
Aluminum frames handle salt air reasonably well. Steel screws, zinc latches, and cheap closers do not — they corrode, seize, and crumble, sometimes within a couple of years on waterfront homes. The fix is material choice: stainless or coated fasteners, hardware rated for coastal exposure. It costs more per piece than the cheap stuff and it is not close over the life of the enclosure. On bayside and beachside jobs, we spec coastal hardware as standard and we will show you the difference in what we install.
Connections to the House
Where the cage meets the house is a structural connection, not just a joint — flashing, fasteners, and sealant keeping water out of your wall. We check these connections on every frame inspection. Water intrusion at the house connection rots fascia and invites mold; it is the one frame issue that can damage the house itself, not just the cage. If we find a problem there, we will show you and explain the fix before it becomes a wall repair.