How many security screens does a Wollongong house actually need?

How to measure it properly, with a tape and a phone

Ten minutes with a steel tape gives us enough to quote accurately over email and saves a visit. We still check-measure before anything is made, so nothing you write down becomes your liability, but a good set of numbers means the quote you get is the price you pay.

1. Measure the opening, not the old screen. This is the whole ball game. The existing screen is already undersize by design, so copying it makes the new one undersize again.
2. Take three widths and three heights. Width at the top, the middle and the bottom. Height at the left, the centre and the right. Write down the smallest of each, not the average. Older Wollongong housing is rarely square and the smallest dimension is the one the screen has to pass through.
3. Note the reveal depth. That is how far the glass sits back from the outside face of the wall. Under about 30 mm there is not enough room to sit a screen inside the reveal, so it gets face-fixed to the outside of the frame instead. Tell us which you measured to.
4. Note the frame material. Aluminium, timber or steel. Timber jambs on older weatherboard and fibro homes need a poke with a screwdriver: if it goes in, that jamb needs repair before a security frame is screwed into it.
5. For hinged doors, record the handing. Standing outside looking at the door, which side are the hinges on, and does the screen need to swing out clear of a wall return, a light switch, a step or a downpipe? Handing cannot be swapped after fabrication.
6. For sliders, record which panel moves and which side it parks on, plus whether there is already a flyscreen track we can use.
7. Photograph everything. One shot square on with the tape held across the opening and the numbers readable, one from an angle showing the reveal depth and the frame, and one wide shot showing what is around the opening. Name them by room, like bed1 or kitchen, and send them with the enquiry.
8. Mark the bedrooms. Every bedroom opening needs a fire-egress answer, and a hinged quick-release screen is a different frame at a different price. Sorting that at measuring time avoids a revised quote later. The egress rules page explains what is required.

Rules of thumb and the allowances to add

• Do not deduct anything from the opening. Screens are manufactured 3 to 5 mm under the measured opening so the frame and the wedge can seal. The fabricator makes that deduction. If you make it too, the screen sits 8 to 10 mm loose and the gap is visible.
• Add 10 per cent to any mesh area you calculate. That covers frame overlap and offcuts. It is an estimating allowance, not something you add to a measurement.
• Mesh roll width caps a single panel. Security mesh usually comes on rolls around 1,200 to 1,250 mm wide, so anything wider needs a horizontal mid-rail or a mesh joiner. Ask where that rail will land on a wide living room window before you order.
• Hinged leaves have a practical width limit. Past about 1,000 to 1,100 mm a single leaf starts to sag under its own weight in a couple of years. Wider openings should be a double pair or a slider. See the sliding door guide.
• Count reachable, not visible. Anything under about 2 m above the ground outside is reachable, and so is anything a person can get to from a fence, a bin, a carport roof, a pergola or a low garage roof. Walk the outside of the house once and it becomes obvious.
• An opening under about 350 mm in its smallest dimension is not a person-sized entry. Small bathroom and toilet awnings usually do not need a security screen.
• Allow 1 to 3 weeks for manufacture once the order is placed, longer from October to Christmas.

The sizing mistakes that cost the most here

Five mistakes, ranked by what they cost when they happen on an Illawarra house.

1. Measuring the old screen. The most expensive habit in the trade. It compounds: every replacement gets smaller, until the gaps let insects and salt-laden air straight past the seal. Cost of the mistake is a re-order, usually $200 to $500 per opening.
2. One wide hinged leaf instead of a pair. A 1,200 mm single leaf will sag and the three-point lock will stop lining up inside two years. The fix is a new door, so the mistake costs the whole $900 to $1,400 twice.
3. Getting the count right and the grade wrong. Ordering the correct eight screens in aluminium for a Fairy Meadow address is a bigger loss than ordering seven in 316. Grade is decided by your distance from the water, and the mesh grade guide maps it street by street.
4. Forgetting the egress screens. A quote built on fixed window screens jumps when three bedrooms turn into hinged quick-release frames, typically $80 to $150 more per opening. Decide it before the quote, not after.
5. Under-counting the openings. The laundry door to the side path, the window behind the carport, the toilet awning above the air conditioner. They get missed at the walk-around and each one becomes a separate return visit with its own minimum charge.

Worked example: a 1970s Figtree brick veneer

Single storey, three bedrooms, aluminium sliding windows, brick reveals, about 6 km from the water and sheltered by the escarpment, so 304 woven stainless is the right grade. Here is the whole job counted and added up.

Skipped on this house: the bathroom awning at 800 x 400 mm, too small to climb through, and the two roof-space vents. That is $190 saved and nothing lost.

Two changes worth noting. Move the same house to Corrimal Beach and every screen becomes 316 marine grade, which takes the total to roughly $4,700 to $4,900. Move it to Kembla Grange and perforated aluminium is fine, which brings it down to around $3,100. Same eight openings, same 15.5 square metres of mesh, roughly $1,800 of difference driven entirely by the street.

Where you can honestly screen less

We would rather size the job correctly than sell you extra frames. Skip the second-storey windows unless there is a pergola, carport, low roof or climbable tree next to them: a flyscreen at $90 to $160 does the insect job and a security screen at $180 to $480 buys nothing. Skip the small bathroom and toilet awnings. Skip any window inside a locked courtyard that is already behind a screened door. And if a window is fixed glass that does not open, a security screen mostly buys you shade and salt protection rather than security, so weigh it on that basis.

On the other side, do not skip the rear and side ground-floor windows just because nobody can see them. Those are exactly the openings that get used, precisely because nobody can see them. If the budget only stretches so far, the budget tiers page sets out the sensible order to do them in, and the warranty guide covers what the cover looks like once they are on.