Can You Buy Pre-Made Window Screens?
The short answer is yes, you can. Pre-made window screens are widely available online, and if you’ve been searching for a quick way to keep flies out this summer, you’ve probably already seen plenty of them. The longer answer — and the one that actually matters if you want a screen that works — is that for most UK homes, a pre-made screen is the wrong purchase. Here’s why, along with the handful of situations where we’d honestly tell you a pre-made screen is fine.
The Problem With Pre-Made Screens: UK Windows Don’t Come in Standard Sizes
Pre-made screens are built on one big assumption: that your window is the same size as everyone else’s. In the UK, it almost never is.
Walk down any street and you’ll see uPVC casements, timber sash windows, tilt-and-turns, and everything in between — installed across decades, by different manufacturers, to different specifications. Even two houses on the same road, built in the same year, can have windows that differ by an inch or more once frames, sills, and settling are taken into account.
A pre-made screen deals with this by being a compromise. It’s either too big, too small, or “adjustable” in a way that leaves gaps around the edges — and a fly screen with gaps isn’t a fly screen. Insects don’t need an open window; they need a few millimetres.
After years of manufacturing fly screens for UK homes, our view is simple: windows are individual, so screens need to be individual too. A bespoke screen made to your exact measurements fits properly, seals properly, and looks like it belongs on the window rather than being strapped to it.
A Real Example: The Sash Window That Didn’t Need Covering
One story sums this up better than any explanation.
A customer came to us after buying a pre-made screen for their sash window. The screen technically “fitted” — in the sense that it covered the entire window. The trouble was, only the opening section of a sash window actually opens. They’d paid to screen a large area of glass that never moves and never lets a fly in, while ending up with something bulky, awkward to fit, and far more visible than it needed to be.
What they actually needed was a screen sized to the opening section alone — smaller, neater, cheaper to make, and doing exactly the same job. That’s the kind of detail a bespoke screen gets right and a pre-made one simply can’t, because the manufacturer has never seen your window.
When a Pre-Made Screen Is Actually Fine
We’d rather be honest than salesy, so here it is: there are situations where a pre-made screen is a perfectly sensible choice.
- Rented accommodation. If you can’t make permanent changes and you’ll be moving on, a temporary pre-made screen is a reasonable stopgap.
- Caravans and holiday use. If the screen only needs to survive a few months of summer and nobody minds how it looks, pre-made will do the job.
- A one-season fix. If you genuinely just need to get through this summer while you decide on something better, we won’t pretend otherwise.
The common thread is temporary. If it’s your own home and you want a screen that fits, seals, lasts, and doesn’t make the window look like a DIY experiment, bespoke is the better route every time.
“But Won’t I Measure It Wrong?”
This is the fear that sends most people towards pre-made screens, and we understand it. Nobody wants to order a made-to-measure product and get the tape measure wrong.
The reassuring truth is that measuring for a fly screen is straightforward. It’s a few simple measurements, not a carpentry exam. To take the guesswork out of it entirely, every product page on our website has a downloadable PDF measuring guide that walks you through exactly what to measure and where. Follow the guide, and you’ll have your sizes in a couple of minutes.
What Does a Bespoke Fly Screen Actually Cost?
The other assumption that pushes people towards pre-made screens is that “made to measure” must mean expensive. It doesn’t.
A typical magnetic or hinged fly screen from us starts at £34, with the price increasing with the size of the window. For most windows, you’re not paying dramatically more than you would for a decent pre-made screen — you’re just getting one that actually fits.
Where the value really shows is in how long they last. Our screens are made from durable aluminium profiles, and treated properly they’ll serve you for years. That’s not a marketing claim, either:
- The roller fly screens in our own home have been in daily seasonal use for over 10 years and are still going strong.
- We regularly hear from past clients coming back for replacements after 20 years of service.
Compare that with a pre-made screen that sags, gaps, or falls apart after a season or two, and the “cheap” option starts to look rather expensive.
The Bottom Line
Can you buy pre-made window screens? Yes — and for a rented flat or a caravan, go right ahead. But if you want a fly screen for your own home that fits your window properly, keeps every insect out, and is still doing its job a decade from now, a bespoke made-to-measure window fly screen is the answer. Measure up with one of our free PDF guides, and you’ll have a screen built for your window — not for a window that doesn’t exist.
