Patio Door Screens in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles

Patio doors in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles

Between 1960 and 1990 the patio door went from a luxury to basic equipment, and Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles was built right through that transition. The early bungalows have one, narrow, in an aluminum frame on steel rollers; the cottages and semi-detached houses of the 1970s and 1980s have a wider one, already close to today’s standard, and a cottage sometimes carries a second one upstairs, onto a balcony; the last houses of the period are PVC. On the wide lots of this borough the door opens onto a yard that serves as a real summer room, and the screen panel is worked from morning to night by everything living in the house, adults, children and animals included. It is the hardest-working part of the place, by a wide margin.

At the two ends of the borough, the old village cores along the St. Lawrence and the Rivière des Prairies have older houses, and their patio door, where there is one, came with an addition: a kitchen pushed toward the back, an enclosed porch, an extension on the garden side. Those doors were set into a structure that had not planned for their weight, and the track may have followed the settling of the extension over the years: the panel rolls well on one side and drags on the other. Where the door faces the water, the wind works the mesh head-on as well. Two ends, two door stories, and one trade: figure out what rolls, what holds the mesh, and what has moved.

What gives out on these doors in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles

The most common scenario on doors from these three decades starts with the roller. On 1960s aluminum models it is steel and rusts; on 1980s models it is nylon and flattens; either way, the door starts jumping the track at the same spot on every pass. The reflex is to lift the panel and shove it back in — the very move that opens the corner of the frame and shifts the latch so it no longer meets its keeper. We replace the rollers after identifying the model, close the corner, straighten the stile if it has taken a bow, and change the latch when its tongue is worn. The mesh, stretched by hands and split at the bottom corner by the dog wanting out, is redone in the same visit; with the track cleaned and lubricated, the door closes with one finger.

Access and constraints in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles

On wide lots the patio door opens onto a yard big enough to do everything outdoors: the panel comes out, lies flat and is rescreened without ever going inside the house. On a cottage, an upstairs door onto a balcony comes apart from the bedroom, panel lifted over the railing, and a narrow balcony leaves little room to lay it flat. In the old cores the real obstacle is geometry: a rectangular replacement panel does not ride in a track that has followed the settling of an extension. We measure the track at three points before deciding between adjusting, straightening and rebuilding.

Which mesh for your patio door in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles

The mesh is chosen by what pushes on it. On an ordinary yard door, standard fibreglass remains the airiest. On a house whose yard faces the St. Lawrence or the Rivière des Prairies, wind rules: a large exposed panel keeps its tension in aluminum, not in fibreglass, which stretches and then slaps. And as soon as a dog or cat goes through the door to the yard, pet-resistant mesh is the only choice that lasts more than a season — the thick strand takes the paw and the claw at the bottom corner, where every other mesh gives first.