Magnetic Fly Screen for Arched Windows and Doors

An arched opening is the one shape no standard fly screen covers. Kits are cut square, rigid frames cannot follow a curve, and the sliding panel that came with the rest of the house was never made for the feature window above the stairs. That is why arched windows are so often the only unscreened opening left in an otherwise well protected home, and it is the whole reason this product exists.

Where arched openings turn up

Almost always somewhere that matters. The fanlight over a front door, the feature window in a gable, the tall round headed windows of a converted chapel or mill, arched French doors onto a terrace, and the glazed end of an orangery or garden room. In older housing they are usually original joinery that nobody wants to alter, and in newer builds they are the architectural feature the house was designed around. Neither is a good candidate for drilling a frame into.

How a Made to Measure Arched Screen Works

The panel is cut to the curve you measured rather than to a size off a list. Magnetic strips run around the whole perimeter, following the arch, and the matching adhesive strip goes onto the frame or the reveal, so the screen sits flush against the shape of the opening instead of boxing it into a rectangle. There is no drilling, no tools and nothing permanent, and it comes away at the end of the season without marking the joinery.

Full mesh or central separations

This is the option people ask about most, so it is worth explaining plainly. A full mesh panel is one continuous piece with no opening in it: the right choice for a window you look through rather than walk through, because it is the tidiest and there is no seam across the glass.

A central separation adds a magnetic closure down the middle, so the panel becomes two halves that part when you walk through and pull themselves shut behind you. Choose one separation for an arched door or a French door you use daily. Choose two or more on a wide arched opening, where separations also break a very large panel into sections that are easier to handle, fit and take down on your own.

Measuring an Arched Opening

This is the part that decides whether the screen fits, and an arch needs one more measurement than a rectangle. Take your time here rather than on the colour.

The three measurements

First the overall width, taken at the widest point. Second the total height, from the sill to the highest point of the curve. Third, and this is the one people forget, the height to the springing line, meaning the point up each side where the straight part stops and the curve begins. Without that third number, two openings with identical width and height can be completely different curves.

Semicircular, segmental and pointed arches

A semicircular arch has a rise of exactly half the width and no straight section above the springing line. A segmental arch is a shallower curve, common over Victorian sash windows, where the rise is much less than half the width. A pointed or gothic head is two curves meeting at an apex, which is a different shape again. The three measurements above describe all of them, which is why we ask for them rather than for the name of the arch.

When the arch is not regular

Hand built and older arches frequently are not. If the two sides do not match, or the curve is visibly flatter on one side, make a template: tape paper or thin card across the opening, run a pencil around the inside of the frame, and measure from that. It takes fifteen minutes and it is far more reliable than trying to describe an irregular curve in numbers.

Fitting Without Drilling

The adhesive strip follows the curve, so what it needs is a continuous, flat, clean surface right around the opening, including through the arch itself. Check that before ordering: a deep reveal, a moulded architrave or a render return through the head is worth knowing about in advance. Clean the frame with methylated spirits rather than a household spray that leaves a residue, and avoid fitting in direct sun on a hot afternoon, because warm helps adhesive and hot does not.

Because nothing is screwed into the building, this suits a rented home, an apartment where the windows are common property, and listed or period joinery you are not free to alter. It also means the screen can come down for the winter and go back up next season.

Made to Measure Cannot Come Back

A panel cut to your curve fits nobody else's opening, so it cannot be returned the way a standard size can. That is not a policy quirk, it is what made to measure means, and it is the reason to measure twice and write the numbers down rather than trusting memory between the ladder and the keyboard. If your opening is irregular, set back in a deep reveal, or has a catch or a stay in the way, say so with the order instead of rounding the numbers and hoping.