Laser-cut screen doors can be made in a variety of styles.

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Even in hot summers, there are days that make us want to open ourselves up to the world — the air laden with scents and murmurs that remind us we are connected. And fall follows, of course, with air worth every crisp, low-humidity breath.

To enjoy such weather without the distraction of bugs indoors, humans created screens. Then they upgraded. Today, screens can block ultraviolet rays , keep pets in, serve as security doors and enhance curb appeal.

The world of screen doors has definitely moved on from the flimsy aluminum one that stuck while Grandma was yelling about the flies getting in. If you’re shopping for one today, you need to consider these questions:

• Do you have pets that might bump against the screen door?

• How much security do you want?

• What style is your house? Victorian? Modern? Rustic?

• Will the door serve as a storm door during the winter?

• Do you have a homeowners’ association with rules about screen doors?

Prepare to make choices about door colors, material, construction, screen colors, security measures, energy considerations and hardware. Standard sizes are 30, 32, 34 and 36 inches wide. Screen doors are available for almost every type of door, including single doors, double French doors and sliding glass doors. Many have the option of replacing the screen panels with tempered glass or Plexiglas to become storm doors in the winter. (In the Southwest, people install insulated glass panes during the summer to cut down on heat entering the house and use screens during the mild winter.)

The mesh for screen doors can be chosen for function and visual appeal. “Pet mesh” is about seven times stronger than average insect mesh. Mesh with tiny holes deters tiny insects, such as “no-see-’ems”; punched steel deters would-be thieves.

Standard insect mesh is fiberglass. Mesh can be also be made of copper (extremely durable), aluminum and vinyl-coated polyester. Colors vary by manufacturer and include black, charcoal, white, bronze and green.

Bevi Chagnon learned about screen doors and pets last summer, after overhauling the screened porch at her family’s 80-plus-year-old Connecticut beach house.

The finishing touch was putting on the new screen door. She had searched high and low to find a wooden door she could afford that fit the cottage’s design and was constructed with dowels or screws, because staples wouldn’t survive the nonstop traffic of family members and tenants all summer long, plus nor’easters.

“As my contractor and I stood back and admired it,” she related in an e-mail, “a Harley-Davidson motorcycle screamed down the road and backfired, scaring the beejesums out of my 1-year-old Shetland Sheepdog puppy, who bolted at full-Sheltie speed right through the door screening, down the stairs, across the beach and into the water for safety.”

Total lifetime of the new screen door before destruction: less than 30 seconds. The dog was fine. The door now has some nice wood lattice on the bottom section.

Chagnon’s screen door started with regular mesh on the bottom half. No one had mentioned the option of pet screen — although even that stronger mesh would not have held up against a panicked sheepdog.

How effective the pet screen is depends on the pet. Vicki Dobbin of suburban Washington took her cat-scratched screen door to a local mom-and-pop hardware store, which put in pet-proof screen.

“No one told our cat that it was pet-proof, however,” she said, “and we’re probably going to have to get it repaired again soon” because there has been more scratching. “But repair was so much cheaper than new, we don’t mind.”

Steel screen doors, while strong, chip and then rust, which looks ugly and weakens the door. Aluminum alloys can be stronger than steel and don’t rust. A vinyl door with a steel frame inside requires no painting and won’t chip or rust. Wooden doors don’t rust but need to be painted or coated. It’s another decision in which you need to balance cost, look and maintenance requirements.

The doors are available in dozens of colors, depending on the manufacturer. And designs go way beyond the basic two plain rectangles of screen. Arts and Crafts, Victorian, and other period doors are readily available. Or you can personalize them. On a rustic house, a wooden door might show off a carved forest of pines and parading ducks. A modern house could have a white sunburst.

“We have over 200 standard designs,” says Melissa Lawrence, marketing manager for Unique Home Designs. The Arizona company produces laser-cut screen doors and in July rolled out its product in mid-Atlantic Home Depot stores. “Now that people are staying in their homes longer, they are demanding a better product.”

You don’t have to have iron bars to have a secure screen door, Lawrence said. Stronger construction and materials, deadbolts, three-point lock sets (which latch into the door frame at three places), and screens that can be replaced with double-paned thermal glass make it possible for the screen door to serve as the only front door.

In addition to regular hinged screen doors, a retractable screen door is also an option. A retractable screen may satisfy community association rules against a permanent screen on a front door. These screens operate as a roller blind does — only instead of hanging at the top of a frame and being pulled down to a bottom sill, the screen is pulled from a hidden roller at one side of the door and kept in place on the other side by a magnet or latches.

Lorraine Maslow, of Delaware, loves the retractable screen at the top of her storm door. As she described it in an e-mail: “The convenience with the rolling screen is fantastic beyond description. No more putting glass in and out. No more cleaning a dirty, dusty piece of glass that’s been sitting in the garage all winter. On nice days in the winter or fall, the screen is available at a touch. When that smoke alarm goes off because dinner burned, the door stays closed but the screen may be opened for ventilation. Its convenience is such that I will never do without it.”

A temporary screen door hung from a tension rod is on the market, too.

One of the most important things about a long-lasting screen door isn’t the door itself but the frame. Michael Costello, owner of Mr. Handyman in suburban Washington, said that, especially on many newer houses, the front door has such a shallow frame that an additional frame must be built to support a screen door. The door must fit properly inside the frame to open and close smoothly. Also, the frame must be maintained so that the wood doesn’t rot and fail to support the hinges. Costello said installation is likely to cost almost as much as the screen door itself.