How Do I Know If My Pool Cage Needs Rescreening vs. Repair?
The short version: if the failures are isolated — one to three panels, on a cage where the surrounding mesh and spline are still pliable — that is a repair. If failures are spread across more than one wall, or the spline throughout has gone brittle, a full rescreen is usually the more economical call, because the cost of getting a crew and access equipment to the cage is the same whether they touch three panels or forty.
What I actually check before quoting a partial
- Whether the surrounding panels are the same mesh and the same age — a single fresh panel against sun-faded neighbors is visible from the house
- Whether the spline in the adjacent channels is still pliable or has gone brittle
- Whether the screws in that section will back out clean or are likely to shear
- How much of the rest of the cage is on the same clock — if a third of it will need doing within a couple of seasons anyway, it usually makes sense to do it once
Age is the other input. The median Casselberry house was built in 1980; a cage that old has usually been rescreened at least once already, and how well that first rescreen was done is the biggest unknown on any older frame. See how old your neighborhood's cages typically are before deciding which quote to ask for.
Not sure which of these is your problem?
Describe what you're seeing — a couple of photos helps — and I can usually tell you over the phone.