A screen door for a door that swings out...

June 8, 2015 2:36 PM

My backyard main house door swings outward. It's a solid single steel door, no windows. I liked to install a temporary screen door during the summer that doesn't get in the way of the door closing / locking. Any ideas?
posted by bleucube to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

Not sure how the door is mounted, but what about a temporary magnetic screen door mounted on the inside door frame?
posted by supercres at 2:40 PM on June 8, 2015

If the door swings out, is there a reason you can't install the screendoor on the inside? From the inside, you'd have to open the screendoor to open the main door, which would be awkward but seems ok for a backdoor, which would probably be either open or closed most of the time.
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:40 PM on June 8, 2015

A retractable screen door on the inside should work.
posted by bajema at 2:42 PM on June 8, 2015

What about the ever so cheesy Magic Mesh. You could install it against the inside of the door so the door could still be open, but bugs can't come in. Obviously it wouldn't keep pets/kids in.
posted by Northbysomewhatcrazy at 2:43 PM on June 8, 2015

We got something like this (a retractable screen door like bajema referred). It functions - keeps bugs out, allows air to pass through. But as a door it's not great; especially if you have kids or large pets. Even worse within a year of installation the screen began to tear away from its edge at the top. I'm looking for a better solution myself.
posted by deliquescent at 2:45 PM on June 8, 2015

Neighbor has magic mesh. It works pretty well.
posted by Thistledown at 3:09 PM on June 8, 2015

I just did what supercres suggests and it works great.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:14 PM on June 8, 2015

Yeah, we have that Magic Mesh thing, we love it as it keeps bugs out really well. We've taught our kid not to be rough with it as it's only held in place by tacks (it comes with the tacks), but when we dog sit we have to prop it open so the dogs don't tear it when they scratch at the door. Depends on the dog I suppose.
posted by vignettist at 10:14 PM on June 8, 2015

For the past 10 years on our back door we have had a screen curtain that I made out of a roll of window screen. I didn't like the magic mesh thing because it seemed kinda flimsy, plus the tacks to hold it in. The curtain works quite well, although I should get around to putting a couple weights on the bottom one of these days so it doesn't blow around quite as much when it is windy.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:12 AM on June 9, 2015

Our back door also swung outward, but because this puts the hinges on the outside, we weren't comfortable with the situation. Eventually we had our handy-man come and just replace the (very old) door, with a nice new one that swings inward. Then he was able to put the metal security door, no issues.

We have a metal security screen door because we have two cats, to whom a screen of any sort is not actually a barrier.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:39 AM on June 9, 2015