Fly Net for Doors: Are the Cheap Ones Worth It? (UK Buyer’s Guide)

If you’ve searched “fly net for door”, you’ve almost certainly seen the cheap ones. The £3 to £5 mesh curtains on eBay, the stick-on nets that promise to keep every fly in Britain out of your kitchen for the price of a coffee. The question you’re really asking isn’t “what is a fly net” — it’s “are the cheap ones any good, or am I about to waste a fiver?”

We manufacture door screens here in the UK, so we’ve seen both ends of this. We’ve also had plenty of customers come to us after trying the budget option first. So here’s an honest guide: when a cheap fly net is perfectly fine, when it isn’t, and what you actually get for a bit more.

What people mean by “fly net for door”

“Fly net” is just one of the names people use for a door insect barrier. You’ll also hear fly curtain, mosquito net, insect screen, door net — they all point at roughly the same idea: a mesh barrier that lets air through and keeps flying insects out. If you want the full breakdown of the terminology, we’ve written a separate guide on the difference between a fly net and a fly screen. This guide is about something more practical: whether the cheap version is worth your money.

The cheap fly nets: when they’re actually fine

Let’s be fair to them. The budget mesh curtains — the ones that hang from a self-adhesive strip or a few tacks and part in the middle as you walk through — do a job. If any of these sound like you, a cheap fly net might be all you need:

• You want something for a single summer and don’t mind replacing it next year.
• It’s for a caravan, a shed, a utility door, or somewhere that doesn’t need to look smart.
• You’re renting and can’t fix anything permanent to the frame.
• You just want to test whether a screen helps before committing to a proper one.

For those situations, there’s genuinely no need to spend more. We’d rather tell you that than sell you something you don’t need.

Where the cheap ones let you down

The trouble starts when a throwaway net is asked to do a permanent job. The common complaints are always the same:

• The adhesive gives up. Stick-on strips rarely survive a warm summer — the glue softens, the net droops at one corner, and the gap it leaves is exactly where the flies come in.
• They sag and gape. Lightweight mesh with no rigid frame never hangs quite square, so the two halves don’t meet cleanly in the middle.
• They tear. One catch from a passing shopping bag, a dog, or a gust of wind, and the mesh splits.
• They don’t really fit. “One size fits most” fits almost nothing properly. Real door openings vary far more than the packaging suggests, especially in older UK homes where nothing is quite square.

None of this makes them a scam. It just means a £4 net is a £4 net — fine for a season, frustrating as a long-term answer.

What you get for a bit more

If the door is one you use every day, or you’d simply rather buy once and forget about it, a made-to-measure screen is a different proposition. These are built to your exact opening, sit in a proper frame, and are designed to last years rather than weeks. There are a few types, and the right one depends on how the door is used:

• Chain fly screens are the simplest step up — an aluminium chain curtain that snaps shut behind you, popular for back doors and busy commercial doorways. From around £90.
• Hinged fly screen doors give you a rigid framed screen that opens and closes like a real door — a tidy, permanent solution for a single doorway.
• Roller fly screen doors retract neatly into a slim cassette when you’re not using them, with a full-height magnetic closing strip. Ideal for patio and back doors. From around £270 + VAT.
• Sliding fly screen doors run on a slim track and suit wider patio and French door openings.

All of ours are made here in the UK to your measurements, with a choice of mesh — standard, fine midge mesh for the Scottish midge, pollen-filtering for hay fever, or a tougher pet-resistant grade.

So — cheap net or proper screen?

Here’s the honest short version. If it’s a low-use door, a rental, or a one-summer fix, buy the cheap fly net and don’t feel guilty about it. If it’s a door you open every day, one you want to look right, or one where you’re tired of replacing a sagging net every year, a made-to-measure screen will cost more up front and save you the annual frustration.

If you’re not sure which way to jump, that’s genuinely what we’re here for. Send us the width and height of your opening and a quick description of how the door gets used, and we’ll tell you honestly which option fits — even if that turns out to be the cheap one. You can find your nearest starting point on our door fly screen selector.