Window Screen Repair
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Window Screen Repair

Torn mesh, a sagging panel, or a window with no screen at all — we re-mesh the frames you already have and build new ones to fit the opening, then roll the spline so the mesh sits flat and tight.

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Window screen repair in California — an R8Works tech rolling new spline into an aluminum frame on a work table, setting the mesh flat before it goes back
Screens Measured to Fit
Vetted Local Installers

Why hire us?

Spline Sized to Your Frame

Spline comes in half a dozen diameters and the frame decides which one fits. Too thin and the first windy afternoon lifts the mesh out of the channel; too thick and it bows the long sides inward. We carry the range and match it to the groove instead of using whatever is on the truck.

Corners Checked Before the Mesh Goes On

The plastic keys joining an old aluminum frame go brittle long before the mesh does. Re-screening a frame whose corners have crumbled buys you a few weeks — the frame racks out of square and lets go again. We replace the keys, or rebuild the frame, before anything gets rolled.

Solar Screens Fitted Spline-Side Out

A solar screen works by stopping heat before it touches the glass, and that needs an air gap between fabric and pane. Fitted the wrong way round it sits flush and gives back most of what you paid for. Ours go on facing out, on the exterior, where the fabric can shed the heat it absorbs.

Measured to the Frame, Not the Opening

A screen is sized to its own frame, outside edge to outside edge, and a sixteenth of an inch either way is the difference between one that drops into the channel and one you have to force. We measure what is in our hands, not the hole it came out of.

Services Included & Excluded

Complete transparency on what our service covers.

✓ Included

  • Panels taken out and refitted, including casement clips and upper-sash tabs
  • Every frame measured and checked for bow or racking before work starts
  • Old mesh and spline stripped, channel cleared of the crumbled remains
  • New fabric of your choice — standard fiberglass, pet-resistant, or solar
  • Spline matched to the channel and rolled to tension, frame supported
  • Offcuts, old mesh and spline taken away with us

✕ Excluded

  • × New screens built for an opening that has never had one (Add-on)
  • × Corner keys and crossbar replacement on brittle frames (Add-on)
  • × Second-storey panels that cannot be reached from a step ladder (Add-on)
  • × Glass, sash, balance and window hardware repair
  • × Security screens and retractable screen systems
  • × Screens on doors of any kind — see [r8_service_link slug='professional-door-screen-replacement' class='!text-blue-600 hover:!text-blue-700']patio and sliding door screens[/r8_service_link]

How it works

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.

  1. 1

    Tell us about the job

    A few questions online. No phone call, no credit card, nothing to sign.

    about 2 minutes
  2. 2

    Get your exact price

    We read your answers and photos, then text you a firm figure — not an estimate to be revised on the day.

    within 5 minutes
  3. 3

    Pick a time that suits you

    Same day is often available. You are not committed to anything until you choose one.

    you decide
  4. 4

    A vetted pro handles your Window Screen Repair

    They arrive with the right tools, do the work, and clear up before they leave.

    the price you agreed
Enterprise B2B Solutions

Window Screen Rescreening Partner Program

Screens are a turnover item. A tenant moves out, the walkthrough finds two panels pushed out and one with a cat-sized hole, and someone has to deal with it before the unit shows again. We work with property managers, HOA boards and short-term rental operators on exactly that: panels pulled and labeled by unit, rescreened in one pass, and back in their openings before the next viewing. Rates are set per panel across a building rather than per call-out, the schedule is booked against the property instead of the individual unit, and everything lands on one account. Pet-resistant fabric on the units that need it and standard fiberglass everywhere else is the usual arrangement, and it keeps the recurring damage down without re-fabricating the whole building.

Priced by the Panel
Volume rates across a building
Turnover Turnaround
Back in before the next viewing
One Account per Property
Billed to the building, not the unit
Apartment turnover rescreening — an R8Works technician and a property manager checking labeled window screen panels stacked on a building walkway
Accepting New Partners

What Rescreening a Window Actually Involves

Almost every screen that reaches us has one of three problems, and they take three different answers. The screen mesh has torn or gone soft and baggy, which is a rescreen and the frame goes back the way it came. The frame has racked out of square or a corner has let go, which no amount of new mesh will fix. Or both are fine and the panel simply will not stay in the window, because a spring plunger, a clip or a pull tab has broken. Working out which one you have, before anything is cut, is most of the job.

The Spline Is the Whole Job

Spline is the flexible cord that traps the mesh in the groove around the frame, and it is sold in a range of diameters in small steps. The frame decides which one belongs in it. Under-sized for the channel, it holds until the first real wind and then the mesh lifts out along one edge. Over-sized, it goes in hard and pulls the two long sides of the frame inward, and a panel that used to drop into its track now has to be forced. Nothing about the frame tells you this by eye: the old spline gets measured, or a test length gets rolled into one corner and checked before the rest follows.

Tension is the other half. The mesh goes in with the frame supported so it cannot bow, and the corners are checked square before the last side is rolled. A screen rolled too tight looks perfect on the bench and will not sit in the opening.

Fiberglass, Pet-Resistant, or Solar Screen Mesh

Standard fiberglass is what most windows already have — an 18 by 16 weave of vinyl-coated glass yarn, soft, inexpensive and easy to see through. It is also what a determined cat gets through in one afternoon. Pet-resistant screen mesh is a vinyl-coated polyester several times heavier; it survives claws, and it is noticeably more visible from the street. Solar screen fabric is denser again and is doing a different job altogether: it stops a large share of the sun's heat before it ever reaches the glass, which is why it belongs on the outside of the window with an air gap behind it. The Department of Energy's guidance on shading and solar control puts exterior shading ahead of anything fitted on the inside for exactly that reason. Solar fabric also darkens the room, which is welcome in a west-facing bedroom and rarely welcome in a kitchen. It takes the edge off the heat rather than cooling anything, so if that bedroom has to actually come down in temperature that is window AC installation, and if the glare is the real complaint the answer sits on the inside with curtain and blind installation.

The Age of the House Changes the Work

Roll-formed aluminum frames from mid-century sliders are held together at the corners by plastic keys, and those go brittle decades before the mesh does; on those, the corners get checked and replaced before anything is rolled. Vinyl windows from the nineties onward usually carry the screen in an integral track with spring plungers or finger pulls, where a broken plunger is a hardware fix and not a rescreen at all. Older houses here often have wood-framed screens with no spline in them — the mesh is stapled and hidden under a thin molding, which is slower to do properly and worth keeping rather than swapping for aluminum.

How Long It Takes

One panel — measured, stripped, re-meshed and refitted — runs about fifteen to thirty minutes once the right spline and fabric are in hand. A whole house of eight or ten screens is a morning. The part that takes longer than people expect is not the rolling; it is getting every panel out, labeled to the window it came from, and back into the right opening afterwards. Screens from the same wall are rarely the same size, and two of them swapped is a job that has to be done twice.

You Can Do This Yourself — and We Will Help Either Way

Re-meshing a window screen is genuinely a job you can do at home, and plenty of our neighbors do. The fabric and the spline together cost a few dollars at any hardware store, and the tools are a roller and a utility knife. Where it usually goes sideways is the spline: the roller wanders out of the channel and nicks the new mesh on the way past, or the tension pulls the long sides of the frame in far enough that the panel no longer drops into its track. If you are halfway through one on the kitchen table and it has stopped going to plan, call us. We will talk you through which spline diameter your frame takes and which order to roll the sides, for free, whether or not you book anyone afterwards. And if there are six of them stacked against the garage wall and no free weekend in sight, that is the other thing we are for — vetted, background-checked installers who do this every week and carry the fabrics with them. If you have a rental or a second place in the local area, we can pick those panels up on the same run.
15-30 min
Per Panel, Measured to Refitted
1/16 in
Fit Tolerance
Free
Mid-Job Phone Advice

Customer Reviews
4.9 (55 reviews)

Review from Diego Salcedo

Straight answer on the phone about what it would involve, no vague runaround, and the price at the end matched. Screens sit flush and slide without catching now.

Review from Nadira Bakshi

Nine screens that had been sitting in the garage since we moved in, all of them shot. They rescreened the eight worth saving and built one new frame. Now the house actually gets a breeze through it, which after four years is a novelty.

Review from Rachel Sandoval

Casement windows, so the screens clip on the inside and two of the clips were broken. They replaced those and rescreened five panels. One frame had a bend they could not get out and they told me it needed rebuilding rather than just rolling new mesh into something that would fail again. I appreciated being told rather than finding out next spring.

Review from Cormac Sheehan

Been putting this off for three years. Took them ninety minutes. Feel a bit silly.

Review from Elke Brenner

Allergy season is why I bothered. Finer mesh on the bedroom windows so we can sleep with them open. It does cut the airflow a bit, which they warned me about, but it is a trade I would make again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. The opening gets measured, a frame is cut and cornered to fit it, and the mesh goes in the same way as a rescreen. It is priced as an add-on because it is a build rather than a repair, and it takes a little longer — the frame has to be trial-fitted in the opening before the mesh is rolled, since there is no original to copy.
Most window screens come out of the opening in a few seconds and go straight back in, so the work happens at your house while you carry on with your day. The exception is a frame that has to be rebuilt or re-cornered — that one may travel, and you will be told before it goes anywhere.
Usually. Aluminum that has bowed can be pulled back square as long as the corners are sound, and brittle corner keys are a part you replace rather than a reason to bin the frame. What does not come back is a frame with a hard crease in the rail — that one gets rebuilt, and we will say so rather than roll new mesh into something that will fail again.
Yes, and it is worth planning for. Pet mesh is a heavier vinyl-coated polyester, so it reads darker from the street and takes a little more of the view than standard fiberglass. Most people do a whole elevation in one fabric, or put pet mesh only on the windows the animals actually reach, so the difference lands where it looks deliberate.
No. Pulling the panels, labeling each one to the window it came from and putting them back is part of the job, and it is the part that goes wrong when it is rushed — screens from the same wall are rarely the same size. Leave them where they are.
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