Measure, draw, permit where required, build, sign off.
This is the whole sequence, including the parts that take time and the parts customers are usually surprised by. It is written out because a schedule you can see is a schedule you can hold somebody to.
The measure
Somebody comes to the property and measures the structure or the opening. On an existing cage that means overall span, bay spacing, eave height, roof type and pitch, post and beam sizes, and the condition of the splices, the gutter and the base anchors. We check whether the spline grooves are still clean-edged, because a torn or crushed groove will not hold spline and has to be dealt with rather than papered over.
On new work it means the deck: dimensions, thickness where we can establish it, edge distance, the slope of the deck, where the water goes and how the cage will tie to the house.
Nothing is priced from a photograph or a phone description.The drawing and the specification
For a rescreen the “drawing” is a panel schedule — how many bays, how many roof panels, which mesh where, which spline gauge, and any panel getting different treatment such as pet mesh below a chair rail.
For a new enclosure or a structural rebuild it is a real engineered drawing set, sealed, showing the design wind speed for your address, the beam and post sizes that follow from it, the anchor schedule and the fastener spacing. That set is what the building department reviews and what the inspector holds the finished structure against. It is also yours to keep.
The mesh and the design wind speed both appear on your quote.The quote, itemized
Every element priced on its own line: rescreen, kick plates, door work, base anchors, gutter, rail. You can approve some and decline others. Anything you decline stays on the final paperwork at $0.00 with the reason, which is as much for the next contractor as it is for you.
Where we recommend against something you have asked for, that recommendation goes in writing too. We would rather lose a line item than fit something we think loads your frame wrongly.
Deposit only where material is ordered specifically for your job.Permit, where one is required
New enclosures need a permit, and so does structural work that changes members, footprint or anchorage. A straight rescreen — same frame, same footprint, mesh in and out — generally does not, and neither does replacing a screen door or a couple of panels. But the authority having jurisdiction decides that, not us and not you, and the answer is not identical in every city and county we work in.
So we ask before we quote. If a permit is needed, we pull it, we schedule the inspections, and the permit number goes on your paperwork. If somebody offers to do structural work on your cage without one because it is “only a screen room,” that decision lands on your title, not on theirs.
Pool barrier rules can apply separately — see the note below.The build
Two crews, both owner-supervised, both working to the written specification rather than to whatever is on the van. On a rescreen: every groove cleaned out, new spline throughout, mesh tensioned evenly bay to bay so the finished wall reads flat instead of drum-tight in one corner and slack in the next.
On frame work: members set, plumbed and squared before anything is fastened, anchors drilled to depth in fresh holes, and every fastener the drawing calls for actually installed. The pool gets covered. The deck gets swept and a magnet run over it, because a dropped self-tapper in a pool deck finds a bare foot eventually.
Old mesh, spline and offcuts leave with us.Sign-off
We walk the structure with you bay by bay before the crew packs up — not a photo sent afterwards, an actual walk where you can put your hand on it. Doors get opened and closed and the closer gets set in front of you.
Then you get the record: the structure as measured, the specification as built, the work carried out, the cost, and anything declined or recommended against. Where an inspection applies, the inspection result is added to it when it comes through.
Warranty terms are printed on the work order before you sign, not sent later.
1The pool barrier point, because it catches people out.
On a lot of properties the screen enclosure is doing double duty as the pool barrier. That changes the rules for the door: it has to be self-closing and self-latching, and the latch has to sit where a small child cannot reach it. It also means that if a door is off its hinges during a rescreen, or a wall panel is out, the barrier is not doing its job that day. We will tell you when we are at that point and what we are doing about it, rather than leaving it to be noticed.
The inspection starts at the deck and works up. This is what it is looking at.
Start at step one.
Everything above begins with somebody standing in front of the structure with a tape. That visit is the thing to ask for.