Pet Proofing

Pet proofing has its challenges; even pet resistant screens are pushed beyond their limits, when an 80 pound dog like Jake wants to play with the kitty cats that are sunning themselves at the patio door. I replaced the screen on the patio door last year with pet resistant screen. It fared well right up to the point when Jake launched himself at the cats. Didn’t even slow him down when there was regular screening in the patio door.

However when kitty likes to sit on the window sill and sharpen her claws on the screen, pet resistant screens do help reduce the damage done to the screen.

Pet resistant screens help keep cats and small dogs in the house, and keep the bugs out of the house. Since most of the pet resistant screen on the patio door was still good I salvaged it to repair the front window screen and used the Pet Resistant Replacement Kit to fix the patio door.

Pet Resistant Replacement Kit

The kit I got includes everything you need to replace the screen in one door or two windows.

36 in x 45 in or 91.4 cm x 213.4 cm, pet resistant charcoal screen.

Spline

Spline Tool

Phillips Screwdriver

Standard Screwdriver or some other narrow blunt tool about ¼ of an inch.

Utility Knife

The spline tool has a concaved wheel and a convexed wheel; the concaved wheel is for pressing the spline into the spline grove. The convexed wheel is to press metal screening into the spline grove before you press the spline in the grove to hold the metal screen. If you are going to be replacing a lot of screens; I would invest in a good spline tool, the one that comes with the kit doesn’t last long.

If you compare pet resistant screen material to regular screen material it is easy to see the difference. The pet resistant screen is a thicker stronger fiber that is harder for the cat’s claws to cut.

Remove the screen door from the frame by lifting the door up into the top grove and pulling the bottom of the door out of the grove. Then the top should come right out.

Even if you are replacing window screens; you need a large work space, I used the kitchen floor for my work aria.

Remove any obstructions to the spline and the spline grove like this door handle, in my case I removed two Phillips screws with a Phillips Screwdriver.

Remove the spline from the spline grove; this can be difficult if the spline is old and stiff, a small standard screwdriver can be helpful when removing the spline.

Once the spline is out the screen comes off the frame easily.

Clean any debris from the spline grove.

I do not recommend trying to save screen material by starting at the very edge of the pet resistant screen. Leave about an inch of overlap just in case you need to pull up some of the spline and tighten the screen to remove wrinkles.

I started adding the spline at the door handle for added strength.

This pet resistant screen material is a bit springy; so I pressed the screen material and the spline into the spline grove at the same time.

The spline tool won’t press the spline into the grove at the corners; so when I got to the first corner, I pulled the material tight and pressed the spline in with a screwdriver.

After the first corner I pulled the screen material tight to remove any wrinkles and pressed the spline into the spline grove.

I followed this method until I reached my starting point.

This is very important; never have the sharp edge of the utility knife, over the screen material you do not intend to cut. One mistake and you just undid all the work you just finished by cutting a hole in the screen.

With the handle of the utility knife over the screen trim any excess spline where the two ends meet.

Again with the handle of the utility knife over the screen, trim any excess screen off the frame.

Once you remove all the excess material reinstall the door handle.

The screen door reinstall's the same way as it is removed; place the top of the door in its grove and lift it up into the grove. Then place the bottom of the screen door in its grove and let it drop down into the grove. If you did this right the door should slide back and forth easily.

Now Stripy can enjoy the fresh breeze and sun herself in relative safety.