Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 3 we had decided, with the help of Dean who was the installer, to place the retractable screen within the door frame of our French Doors. Remember, the decision on the placement is important because this will impact the height measurements for the components which contain the actual screen. So, decide on the placement before you order your retractable screen door from your supplier of choice (if they have a product which an average home owner can install themselves just like our supplier of choice, DreamScreens Canada Inc.).

Now, we had planned to discuss and show you several different pictures of Dean in action as he cut with his circular saw the components containing the retractable screens, inserted the spring mechanism, placed the end caps to each end and so on. And we will show you many of these pictures below.

What you have to understand, however, is that when you order this product from DreamScreens Canada Inc., this is all done for you already based on your measurements you provide. In the case where you choose the option, as we did, to have the installation done for you the assembly of the unit will be done on site (well, actually it was done outside of our house :-)  ).

The other thing to understand is that the DreamScreens Canada Inc. web site has an amazing collection of pictures for the various components of the product, videos on how the product works (you even see Elizabeth, the President of of the company in one of the videos), different installation options and so on.

So, what we will show below are several pictures of Dean (or rather Dean’s hands )  assembling the right and the left components containing the retractable screen below:

Now, having assembled the pieces, Dean went to work cutting the length of the upper and lower tracks. Remember, the retractable screen door is hidden when retracted. When it is to be used, the person simply pulls on the handle of the screen and slides it along the upper and lower tracts until it reaches the:

• other side of the door frame in the case of a single door installation 
• other retractable screen from the other side of the door frame in the case of a double door installation (as is our case with our French Doors)
• installed lower and upper catches installed in the middle of the door frame in the case of a double door installation to be held in place while the retractable screen on the other side remains retracted (we will explain what this means in a future article; it’s actually pretty cool)

Having cut the upper and lower tracts as well as assembled on site the left and right components containing the retractable screens (remember, we are having this installed within the frame for our French Doors leading out to the deck at the rear of the house), Dean was ready bring all the components inside and start the installation.

When he came in, however, we asked him about how far up the  lower tract would protrude from the floor itself. The reason for us asking is that we have a family member who uses a walker and sometimes a wheel chair. Having the lower tract protrude any significant amount from the floor would cause a barrier to the walker and especially for the wheel chair. And, in time the weight of the walker or wheel chair would I felt start to case the lower tract to bend and become mis-aligned prohibiting the retractable screen from sliding across the lower tract.

Well, Dean came up with what he said was a very unique installation approach that we like to call the Dean & Daily Home Renovation Tips solution. Return tomorrow when we let you in on our unique solution.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 5.