Magnetic Fly Screen for Triangular, Sloped and Irregular Openings

Some openings are not rectangles and never were. A gable end glazed to the apex, a window that follows the pitch of a roof, a trapezoid over a staircase, the angled end panel of a conservatory: none of them exist in any standard size, and a rectangular screen either leaves a triangle of open gap or covers half the light. This product is cut to the actual outline of the opening, whatever that outline is.

The Openings This Is Made For

Gables and apex glazing

The glazed gable end is the classic case: a wide base, two sloping sides and a point at the top, often several metres across. It is usually the highest opening in the room, which makes it the one doing the ventilating on a warm evening, and therefore the one worth screening rather than the one easiest to reach.

Rooms in the roof and sloping ceilings

In a loft conversion or an A frame the window frequently sits where the ceiling slopes, so the opening is a trapezoid rather than a rectangle. Heat collects at the top of those rooms and the sloped window is the cheapest way to get rid of it, which is exactly why it stands open at the hour insects are most active.

Staircase windows, chalets and conservatories

Tall stairwell glazing that follows the run of the stairs, chalet style gables, and the angled side panels where a conservatory roof meets the walls. All of them are shapes a fabricator would quote for and a kit cannot touch.

Central Separations, and Why a Big Panel Needs Them

This screen is available with one to four central separations, which is to say two to five panels, and on the largest openings the choice is not only about walking through.

Each separation is a magnetic closure that parts when you pass and pulls itself shut behind you, so on a door height opening the number of separations is simply how many walk through points you want. On a wide gable or a run of several metres, separations do something else as well: they break what would otherwise be one very large sheet into sections you can fit, handle and take down on your own, and they keep the mesh taut across a long span. As a rule of thumb, add a separation for every panel width you would not want to hold at arm's length on a ladder.

Measuring an Asymmetric Opening

Start with a sketch, not with numbers

Draw the outline of the opening on paper first, roughly to shape, then write the measurements onto the drawing. Every irregular opening we see is measured wrong in the same way, which is that the numbers are right but nobody can tell afterwards which edge each one belongs to. A sketch removes that entirely.

What to measure on a triangle or a trapezoid

For a triangular gable: the full width at the base, the vertical height at each end, and the height to the apex, plus how far the apex sits from the left hand edge if it is not centred. For a trapezoid: the width at the bottom, the width at the top, and the vertical height at both ends. In both cases measure the opening you want covered, not the glass, and take each dimension twice.

Where the slope meets the wall

The corner where a sloping edge meets a vertical one is the point that has to be right, because a small error there opens a gap along the whole slope. Measure into the corner rather than estimating it, and note whether the frame runs flush into the plaster or stops short of it.

Fitting on a Slope

A sloped or overhead edge behaves differently from a vertical one: the weight of the panel pulls along the adhesive line instead of hanging straight down from it. That makes surface preparation matter more here than on an ordinary window, not less. Clean the whole run with methylated spirits, let it dry properly, press the strip down along its full length rather than at intervals, and give it time before hanging the mesh. Fit in the morning rather than onto a frame that has been in full sun all afternoon.

Nothing is drilled or screwed, which is what makes this workable on the joinery of a conversion, on a rented property, and on glazing you are not permitted to alter. It also means the panel comes down at the end of the season and goes back up the next one.

Made to Measure Cannot Come Back

A panel cut to your outline fits no other opening, so unlike a standard size it cannot be returned. Spend the extra fifteen minutes on the sketch and the measurements, and tell us about anything unusual with the order: a handle or a stay inside the opening, a deep reveal, a beam crossing the glazing, or a shape that is not quite the triangle it looks like from the ground.