A torn patio sliding screen door is one of those small household failures that quietly ruins your summer. The tear lets in mosquitoes every evening, the track sticks, and eventually you just stop opening the door at all.
The good news: most patio screen problems are fixable, and you have three clear options.
Option 1: Patch the tear
A small puncture — under an inch or two — can sometimes be patched with a screen repair patch. It's cheap and quick, but it's a band-aid. Patches show, they're weaker than the original mesh, and in a BC coastal climate the adhesive degrades within a season or two.
Patch only if the frame is in great shape, the tear is tiny, and you just need a few more weeks before a proper fix.
Option 2: Rescreen the existing door
This is the sweet spot for most Lower Mainland homes. We take your existing sliding screen door, strip the old mesh, and stretch brand-new mesh — standard grey fiberglass, or upgrade to metal mesh for pet and rodent resistance — into the original frame.
You keep your existing track and hardware, and you get a tight, clean screen that looks new. Rescreening is far cheaper than replacing the whole door and is the right call whenever the frame is still square and the track still rolls smoothly.
We offer a professional re-screening service for patio sliding doors with both standard and metal mesh.
See patio door screen options →
When to replace the whole door
Sometimes the frame itself is the problem. Replace the entire sliding screen door when:
- The frame is bent or out of square
- The track is worn and the door keeps jumping off
- The rollers are seized and can't be adjusted
- You want to upgrade to a heavier-duty or retractable system
A new custom-built sliding screen door from us is sized to your exact opening and built with the frame colour and mesh you choose.
Explore retractable screen options →
Should you upgrade to metal mesh?
If you have pets, live near greenbelt, or your patio door is on the ground floor, metal mesh is almost always worth it. Fiberglass tears the moment a cat leans on it or a raccoon pushes through; metal mesh holds. For Lower Mainland homes near parks and ravines — much of North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Burnaby — it's the upgrade that stops you re-screening every year.
DIY or let us handle it
Rescreening a patio door is doable for a handy homeowner, but getting the mesh drum-tight takes practice and the right spline roller. If you'd rather not fight with it, we build and rescreen daily in our Coquitlam workshop, with pickup or installation across the Lower Mainland.
Book a measurement or rescreen →
The short version
Patch nothing, rescreen most things, replace only when the frame or track is shot. When in doubt, bring the door in — we'll tell you straight which of the three it needs.