How to install a magnetic screen door

Installation is mostly patience with adhesive. The screen in the bag is already built. You are giving it a square frame to hold onto and a center seam that can find itself. The steps below follow the hardware AUGO actually ships on AUGO fiberglass screen (Amazon, opens in a new tab): hook-and-loop strips and push pins, plus the snaps that hold the screen open.

Before you peel anything

1. Confirm the fit line against your measurements. A 36 × 82 door gets AUGO fiberglass screen (Amazon, opens in a new tab). A 36 × 80 door gets AUGO polyester 38 × 81 screen (Amazon, opens in a new tab).
2. Wash the mounting face with mild soap, rinse, and let it dry. Paint needs to be cured, not fresh this weekend.
3. Pick a calm hour. Adhesive and a windy porch do not cooperate.
4. Decide now whether pins are allowed. Renters and metal frames should stop at the tape. See renters.

Hang the top first

Stick the hook-and-loop along the top of the opening, then press the top edge of the screen into it. Center the seam in the middle of the doorway. If the seam starts off-center, every magnet below it will miss its partner. Press for a full pass with your palm, not a quick pat. The adhesive grabs better after pressure.

Step back. The two halves should hang like a closed curtain, overlapping slightly at the center, with the hem at the threshold and not piled on it. If the hem pools, the screen is too long or the top is mounted too low. If you see daylight under the hem, it is too short for this opening.

Then the sides

Attach one side, smooth, and then the other. You want a little tension so the mesh is not billowing, and not so much tension that the center magnets are being pulled apart. Walk through once. The seam should open around your body and shut without a hand. If it stays open, the sides are too tight or one half is flipped. If it gaps in the middle only, the top is crooked.

AUGO's listing says the hook-and-loop runs the full frame, not just the corners. Use the length they give you. Corner dots are how screens parachute off the trim in the first thunderstorm. Full-frame tape is also what the "most secure" line on the AUGO page is talking about.

Pins are the backup, not the first try

On wood trim, add push pins through the tape every several inches, especially at the top corners and halfway down each side. The pins are there for wind and for dogs who treat the screen as a starter pistol. They leave holes. On vinyl, aluminum, stucco, and RV skins, do not improvise with longer nails. If the tape will not hold, this is the wrong product for that frame, not a fastener problem.

Flux Phenom fiberglass screen (Amazon, opens in a new tab) includes tacks for a different job: folding the hem in when the screen is wider than the door. The listing says that fold does not work on metal. Do not copy that trick onto an AUGO screen unless the instructions in the bag say you can. Folding a full-length magnet seam can also make the magnets miss.

Use the keep-open snaps on purpose

AUGO describes built-in snaps that hold the halves open. That is the right tool for groceries, a party, or ten trips with a laundry basket. Tie the halves back, do the chore, and snap them shut again. A stick in the doorway or a knot in the mesh is how people tear the seam. Flux Phenom's listing mentions tie-back straps for the same job.

The first day

• Walk through ten times. The seam should sound like a soft zip, not a slap with a gap.
• Look at night with a lamp behind you. Pinholes of light along the center mean the magnets are not meeting.
• Check the top corners after the first warm afternoon. Adhesive that was marginal lets go when the trim heats up.
• Show the dog the middle, not the corner. Corners are where claws find the tape.

If it lets go anyway, do not add a second random brand of tape on top of a dusty first layer. Take it down and follow how to keep it from falling.