Roller Fly Screens
Home Decisions measures, builds and fits retractable roller fly screens that vanish into a slim cassette the moment you don’t need them, so a window or door you open ten times a day stays that easy to use, insects and all kept firmly on the outside.
UK-Made Retractable Roller Flyscreens for Windows & Doors
Bespoke Roller Fly Screens for Homes & Businesses | UK-Made Quality .
Tired of a screen that’s either in the way or nowhere to be found?
A roller fly screen isn’t propped against the wall or unclipped and left on a chair. It lives in a cassette above the window or beside the door, and it only comes out when you pull it out. That’s the whole appeal, and it’s also where most of the DIY versions sold online fall down. A cassette that’s a few millimetres too wide for the recess gets forced in, and a compressed cassette drags on the mesh every single time you pull it down. A side channel fitted a hair out of true catches on a protruding screw head. None of that shows up on day one. It shows up in August, when the screen you’ve used forty times that month suddenly won’t run smoothly, or won’t seal at the bottom edge at all.
Home Decisions fits roller fly screens across Rainham (RM13), Romford (RM1 to RM7), Hornchurch (RM11 to RM12), Dagenham (RM8 to RM10), Barking (IG11), Upminster (RM14), Ilford (IG1 to IG3) and the wider East London and Essex area. Every screen is built at our workshop on Marsh Way in Rainham, and the person who measures your window comes back to fit it, so a cassette that needs adjusting doesn’t turn into a second appointment with someone new.
A free home visit comes first, always. We check the recess depth, confirm whether a face-fix or reveal-fix suits the window better, and take the measurement at more than one point, because a recess that looks square from the middle of the room rarely is when you check both corners. You’ll see a mesh sample, get a written price, and nothing is ordered until you say yes.
What Is a Roller Fly Screen?
A roller fly screen is a made-to-measure insect mesh wound onto a spring-loaded roller inside a slim aluminium cassette, fixed above your window or to one side of your door. Pull the handle bar down (or across, for a door), and the mesh runs down two guide channels until it locks flush against the sill or the opposite channel. Let it go, and the brake-controlled spring draws it back into the cassette on its own. When the window’s shut for the night or the weather’s turned, there’s nothing hanging in the opening at all, just a neat strip of aluminium you’d struggle to notice from across the room.
That’s the core difference from a framed screen, which is a single fixed panel you lift on and off. A roller screen is built to be operated, not removed, which matters most on the windows and doors you actually use every day rather than the ones you open for one warm week in July.
How Does This Screen Work?
Roller fly screens are designed to provide a practical way to ventilate your home while helping keep flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects outside. Instead of fabric, the screen uses a fine insect mesh that rolls neatly into a compact cassette when not in use.
When you pull the handle bar down, the roller fly screen travels smoothly through the side guide channels to cover the window or door opening. The guides keep the mesh aligned as it moves, while the spring-assisted roller allows the screen to retract back into the cassette when you release it.
The result is a discreet, easy-to-use fly screen that stays close to the window or door and takes up very little space when retracted.
Key Features
- High-visibility insect mesh helps keep out flies, wasps, bees, mosquitoes, spiders and other insects while maintaining airflow and daylight.
- Powder-coated aluminium cassette and channels are lightweight, corrosion-resistant and available in White, Brown or Anthracite Grey.
- Slim cassette design fits discreetly behind existing blinds and curtains.
- Spring-assisted operation with an integrated braking system for smooth, controlled retraction.
- Brush-pile side seals help close gaps and reduce insect entry points.
- Flexible installation with face-fix or reveal-fix options. Face fixing can avoid drilling into the window frame.
- Single and double configurations available for windows, single doors and wider double-door openings.
- Made to measure and supplied ready to install, with no on-site trimming required.
Scope of Delivery
Each roller fly screen is supplied complete with the cassette, side guide channels, mounting materials and an illustrated installation manual, so everything needed for fitting is included.
How a Roller Fly Screen Retracts and Seals
The cassette houses the rolled mesh and a torsion spring under tension. Pulling the handle bar down draws mesh off the roller and along two vertical guide channels, each lined with a brush-pile strip that presses against the edge of the mesh as it travels, closing the gap a fly would otherwise use. At the base, the handle bar locks into a clip or magnetic strip, holding the screen taut against the sill.
Release it, and the spring pulls the mesh back up, but not in one uncontrolled snap. Every screen we fit runs a built-in brake that slows the recoil, which matters for two reasons: a screen that claps back hard eventually stresses the join between mesh and handle bar, and a fast-recoiling screen near a young child’s hands is a genuine, avoidable risk. We don’t fit chain-operated screens for that same reason. A closed-loop chain is one more thing to catch a small hand or a curious cat, and a spring-and-brake mechanism does the same job without it.
Roller Fly Screen Mechanisms and Fixing Options in East London
How the cassette and channels attach to your window decides two things: whether you can get your deposit back at the end of a tenancy, and whether the screen sits flush enough to still let blinds or curtains hang properly in front of it.
Face Fix for Rented Flats and Tenanted Homes
The cassette and channels screw or stick directly onto the window frame or door reveal’s face, rather than into the plaster or brickwork behind it. For tenants across Barking, Dagenham and Ilford, that’s the difference between a landlord shrugging and a landlord objecting, since a face-fixed screen comes off cleanly without patching a wall.
Reveal Fix for a Flush, Built-In Finish
The cassette sits inside the window recess itself, level with the frame rather than sitting proud of it. This is the neater option on newer builds where the recess is a known, consistent depth, and it’s what most Beam Park and Rainham Riverside flats end up with, since it leaves the cassette all but invisible once closed.
Single Screens for Windows, Double Screens for Wide Doors
A single screen covers most windows and single doors outright. Wide bifold and patio doors usually need two screens that pull in from each side and meet at a central overlap, sealing the whole width without asking one cassette to span a three or four metre opening.
Choosing the Right Mesh for Your Roller Screen
The mesh you pick changes what actually gets stopped, and the right choice has more to do with where your window sits than what looks nicest close up.
Standard Mesh for Most East London Homes
An 18×16 fibreglass weave stops flies, wasps, bees and moths while barely registering against airflow or daylight. It’s the right call for the overwhelming majority of windows across Rainham, Romford, Hornchurch and the surrounding boroughs, and it’s the mesh we quote unless there’s a specific reason not to.
Midge Mesh Near Rainham Marshes and the Ingrebourne
Homes closest to the marshland along the Thames Estuary, or anywhere near standing water along the Ingrebourne, tend to notice smaller biting midges slipping through standard mesh on a still evening. A tighter weave closes that gap. It does cost you a small amount of airflow, genuinely small, and it’s worth asking about specifically if your garden backs onto open ground rather than another row of houses.
Pet-Resistant Mesh for Homes With Cats and Dogs
A heavier vinyl-coated weave built to take a cat’s claw or a dog leaning its weight against the mesh without punching through. From more than a step or two away it’s very hard to tell apart from standard mesh, it just survives daily contact with an animal that doesn’t know it’s not a door.
Fine Weave Mesh for Hay Fever and Pollen Sensitivity
A tighter weave again, aimed at airborne pollen rather than insects. Worth fitting on a bedroom window if hay fever genuinely disrupts sleep in your household through the spring and early summer, less necessary everywhere else in the house where the airflow trade-off isn’t worth it.
Food-Safe Mesh for Kitchens, Cafés and Takeaways
A domestic kitchen benefits from fewer flies near food prep the same way any room does. A commercial one has a legal obligation to. Food premises with openings to the outside are expected to carry insect-proof screening that can be removed easily for cleaning under UK food hygiene law, and it’s one of the checks an environmental health officer will make at inspection. A roller screen suits this better than a fixed panel in a working kitchen, because staff pull it down and let it retract in one motion rather than lifting a frame on and off between orders.
Roller Fly Screens by Window, Property and Business Type
East London’s window stock ranges from Edwardian terraces to twelve-storey new-build blocks within a few miles of each other, and what a roller screen needs to do changes with the building.
Kitchen & Bedroom Casements in Dagenham, Barking & Ilford
These are the windows opened and closed the most in any house, the kitchen casement you crack while something’s on the hob, the bedroom window you leave an inch open overnight through summer. A roller screen suits that pattern precisely because there’s nothing to find a home for on the worktop or windowsill each time you pull it down, then let it go when you’re done.
Tilt and Turn Windows at Beam Park and Rainham Riverside
New-build flats across Rainham’s Beam Park development and the riverside blocks nearby are almost universally fitted with uPVC tilt and turn windows, and in a flat without a garden, that window is doing more of the ventilation work than it would in a house. A roller screen fitted to a reveal-fixed cassette stays entirely clear of the tilt hinge, so the window tilts for background airflow exactly as before, with the screen simply pulled down when it’s fully open.
Bifold and Patio Doors on Rear Extensions
The rear-extension boom across Romford, Hornchurch and Dagenham has put wide bifold and patio openings on the back of a lot of otherwise ordinary semis. A double roller screen, one panel running in from each side, keeps that full width usable without leaving the whole opening exposed to the garden after dark.
Conservatories and Garden Rooms
A conservatory that gets shut up by June because the doors can’t stay open is a conservatory that’s stopped earning its space. Roller screens across the main sliding or French doors bring it back into use for the warmer months without changing how the room looks the rest of the year.
Cafés, Restaurants and Takeaways on Local High Streets
A serving hatch propped open, a kitchen window cracked for ventilation, a back door held for deliveries, these are exactly the openings an environmental health inspection looks at. A food-safe roller screen that staff operate in one pull, rather than unclip and store, keeps a busy kitchen compliant without slowing service down.
Flats, HMOs and Rented Homes Across Barking and Dagenham
Landlords managing shared houses and buy-to-let flats need something a tenant can use without a manual and a fitting that won’t need justification at the next changeover inspection. A face-fixed roller screen answers both: no drilling into the frame, nothing to explain, and a mechanism straightforward enough that nobody’s tempted to force it.
Looking after a balcony or a wider terrace opening instead of a window? A roller screen isn’t the right tool for that scale of opening, our Zip Screens are built for exactly that, and they’re increasingly common on Beam Park and Rainham Riverside balconies fitted alongside window roller screens on the same visit.
Why a Square, Accurate Measurement Matters More Than the Mesh
Here’s what doesn’t get mentioned enough about roller screens: the mesh grade you choose barely matters if the cassette itself isn’t sitting square. A recess that’s a few millimetres narrower at the top than the bottom, which is genuinely common in East London’s older housing once a frame has settled over a century, will force a cassette that’s cut to a single width, and a forced cassette compresses at the ends. That compression is what actually causes the screen to drag, stick, or stop sealing properly at the sill, not the mesh wearing out.
The other point of failure sits in the guide channels themselves. A screw head that isn’t driven fully flush, or a channel that’s fixed a fraction out of vertical, catches the mesh edge on its way down and up, and over weeks that repeated catching is what frays a corner or works a mesh loose from its handle bar. None of this is a manufacturing fault. It’s a measuring and fitting problem, which is exactly why we measure every recess at more than one point before anything is cut, and why the same person who took that measurement is the one fitting it.
How to Measure for a Roller Fly Screen
| Measurement | What to Do |
|---|---|
| Width | Measure the opening at the top and bottom of the recess. Use the narrower figure, since a cassette forced into a tight spot is the single most common cause of a screen that drags. |
| Drop | Measure from the underside of where the cassette will sit down to the sill, checking both the left and right edges in case the opening has settled unevenly. |
| Recess depth | Confirm there's enough depth for a reveal-fixed cassette to sit flush, typically 45 to 60mm depending on the model, or note if a face fix suits the window better. |
| Fixing surface | Check whether the frame or reveal is timber, uPVC, aluminium or masonry, since it decides whether we're drilling, screwing into an existing frame, or using an adhesive face fix for a rental. |
Other Fly Screens and Blinds We Fit
Most jobs we quote cover more than one product, since different openings in the same building often call for different solutions.
Framed Fly Screens suit windows you open occasionally rather than daily, particularly out-of-square Victorian sashes and bay windows across Barking, Ilford and Dagenham, where a rigid panel copes better with an irregular opening than a running mechanism does.
Pleated Fly Screens fold flat rather than rolling into a round cassette, which suits very wide bifold openings where a slimmer folded stack is easier to live with than two full-height rollers.
Zip Screens cover balconies and larger outdoor openings, and they’re increasingly specified alongside window roller screens on Rainham Riverside and Barking Riverside apartments with private balconies.
Perfect Fit Blinds clip into the window frame without drilling, often fitted on the same visit as a face-fixed roller screen for tenanted flats across Barking and Dagenham.
Roller Blinds are already on most East London windows we visit, and a roller fly screen cassette sits close enough to the glass to leave your existing blind operating exactly as it did before.
Let’s Make Your Home Bug-Free
A screen you barely notice is doing its job properly, right up until you realise you’ve had the window open all week and haven’t swatted a single fly.
📍 Serving London, Rainham and surrounding areas
📞 Call us at +44 1708 505379
Custom Made to Your Measurements & Specification
Unlike many low cost roller screen products, our screens are hand made in our UK based factory to the sizes that you enter and the specification that you select during purchase. Meaning that when you receive your screens they are ready to install, without any arkward trimming hassle. All of the hard work is done for you in our factory!
Unique Brake System
Our screens are spring operated and free from operating chains, which can get tangled and pose a hazard to younger children. In addition, all of our screens feature a unique and 100% reliable brake system which slows down recoil of the screen. This prevents the screen clattering back into its cassette when released, eliminating the risk of damage to the product or worse still, harm to trapped or pinched fingers!
String, Long Lasting Powder Coated Aluminium Profiles
Unlike other screens which use flimsy plastic or light weight metal profiles, our screens use rigid corrosion proof aluminium, protected with a strong powder coated finish. For special “project” requirements additional RAL colours are available and we can even powder coat to custom RAL colours. In the UK, as most windows open outwards, our screens are most often installed internally. However, they are designed to with stand the rigours of year long external installation. So you can be sure that both mesh and profile will not deteriorate for many years!
Suitable for business and food preparation areas
Our roller insect screens comply with all current and proposed European Community regulations – see regulation no. 93/43 EC on hygiene in foodstuff preparation.
Roller Fly Screens
Roller Fly Screens
Roller Fly Screens
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Our friendly customer service team are always happy to help. Whatever you may need, feel free to get in touch.