Lanai & Patio Rescreening in Gainesville, FL

Lanai & Patio Rescreening in Gainesville, FL

A screened lanai is often the most-used room in a Florida house. It is where coffee happens in the morning and where people sit out the worst of the mosquitoes on summer evenings. When the screen gets torn, faded or loose, the room stops doing its job, and the bugs find every gap. Rescreening brings the space back without touching the roof, the slab or the furniture layout.

Lanais and patios differ from pool cages in a few useful ways. Most have a solid roof, either the main house roof or an attached insulated panel roof, so the screen is mostly on the walls. That means less height, fewer roof bays and a lower price. It also means the screen sees more traffic from people, pets and patio furniture, which changes which mesh makes sense.

What we rescreen

• Screened lanais under the main roofline, front or back
• Aluminum patio enclosures with insulated or flat panel roofs
• Screened porches framed in wood, rescreened with staples and trim or with spline where channels exist
• Free-standing screen rooms and gazebos
• Entry doors, dog doors and kick panels within those enclosures

Gainesville Lanai Rescreening Cost and What Drives It

Rescreening a lanai or patio enclosure in the Gainesville area typically runs $1,200 to $4,000. A small back patio with a few wall bays and one door sits near the bottom. A long wraparound lanai with several doors, upper transom panels and a mix of pet and no-see-um screen sits near the top. Wood-framed porches can land anywhere in the range depending on whether the old trim strips come off cleanly.

If only one or two panels are torn and the rest of the screen is still flexible, a full rescreen may not be needed at all. Our screen panel replacement service handles single bays at a per-panel price. We will tell you which approach fits after looking at the mesh up close.

Patio Screen Room Rescreening for How You Use the Space

The right screen for a lanai depends on who uses it. A household with a big dog that leans on the walls needs something different from a retired couple who mostly want to keep no-see-ums away at dusk. Standard 18/14 charcoal fiberglass is still the default for most walls. It is clear to look through, moves plenty of air and costs the least.

Pet-resistant screen is the most common upgrade on lanais, usually only on the lower panels where claws and noses reach. It is a vinyl-coated polyester that is much thicker and stronger than fiberglass. The trade-off is that it is a little harder to see through and costs more per panel. Many people put it on the bottom row and keep standard mesh above the chair rail, which keeps the view clear at eye level.

Lanais close to wooded lots, creeks or retention ponds are prime territory for no-see-ums, the tiny biting gnats that slip right through standard mesh at dawn and dusk. A 20/20 no-see-um weave stops most of them, at the cost of slightly less breeze. On a west-facing lanai that bakes in the afternoon, a solar screen on the sunny wall can make the room usable after 3 p.m. Our screen wall upgrades page compares all of these in detail, and the blog post on pool cage screen types goes through the trade-offs.

Screened Porch Rescreening in Gainesville's Older Homes

Not every screened porch in town is aluminum. Many older Gainesville homes have porches framed in wood, with screen stapled to the studs and covered by trim strips. Those take a different approach. The trim is pried off carefully, the old screen and staples come out, and new mesh is stretched and stapled before the trim goes back. If the trim strips are rotted or split, we replace them with new ones painted to match or leave them primed if you would rather handle the paint yourself.

Wood porches also hide rot at the bottom rail, where rain splashes and screens trap moisture. We check for soft wood while the screen is off and tell you before going further. Small soft spots can be noted for a carpenter. We do not do major carpentry, but we will not cover rotten framing with new screen and call it finished either.

Doors and transoms

Lanai doors take more abuse than any wall panel. They get pushed open with a hip while carrying groceries, kicked shut by kids and leaned on by dogs waiting to come in. While the walls are being rescreened, we check every door for sagging hinges, a weak closer or a latch that no longer catches, and quote any repairs separately so you can decide. Transom panels above doors and along the top of tall walls are easy to forget, but they fade and loosen just like the rest. They are included in a full rescreen price unless you tell us to skip them.

Aluminum patio enclosures

Aluminum patio enclosures work like small pool cages: extruded posts and beams with spline channels, often a chair rail at about knee to hip height, and a kick plate along the bottom. Rescreening them follows the same steps as a cage, with new spline sized to each channel. If posts are loose at the slab, if the kick plate is dented, or if the frame has been bent by a fallen limb, our pool cage frame repair service covers the aluminum side of the job.

Lanai Rescreening Gainesville FL Homeowners Can Plan Around

Most lanais are rescreened in one or two days. Furniture near the walls needs to be pulled toward the center of the room, and plants or grills along the screen should be moved a few feet in. Ceiling fans and lights stay as they are. If the lanai has an outdoor kitchen, keep the grill off until the new screen near it has been checked, and leave a few feet of space between the grill and the wall from then on. We lay down drop cloths over finished floors and sweep out the spline crumbs and screen clippings before we leave.

Homeowners associations sometimes care about lanai screen as much as pool cages, especially where the lanai faces a street or a common area. In planned communities such as Oakmont and Mile Run, it is worth checking if your association specifies screen color or limits privacy panels before you choose an upgrade. For an architectural review form, we will spell out the mesh and color on paper.

If your lanai screen tore in a storm along with damage to the frame or roof, document it before cleanup starts, then look at our storm damage repair service, which includes photos and a written scope for your insurance adjuster.

To get a price, send a few photos of the space through the free estimate form, including one wide shot and a close-up of the worst panel. Lanai work is part of our screen and pool cage repair across Gainesville and nearby towns, and small porches are always welcome.