A new cage is an engineered structure, and it arrives with the drawings that say so.

The number everything hangs off

In Florida a screen enclosure is a permitted structure and it is engineered to a design wind speed taken from the code map for its location. That figure is not a contractor’s preference and it is not negotiable at the quote stage. It is what the engineer designs to and what the building department reviews against.

From it come the beam depths, the post sizes, the bay spacing, the fastener schedule and the anchor spacing. It also constrains the mesh, because the mesh is a surface the wind pushes on and its density is part of the load the frame was sized for. This is why we are strict about not adding denser mesh later to a frame engineered without it.

Your drawings will name the figure. Ask for them, keep them, and hand them to whoever works on the cage in fifteen years’ time. Most of the frustrating jobs in this trade are frustrating because that set is lost.

The deck comes first

A cage is held down by anchors into concrete, so the concrete is part of the structure whether or not it is on your invoice. Thickness matters, edge distance matters — an anchor set too close to the edge of a slab breaks a cone of concrete out instead of holding — and the condition of an older deck matters most of all.

If the deck is not there yet, get it poured with the cage in mind: the perimeter needs to be where the posts are going, thick enough for the anchor schedule, and finished so water runs away from the base plates rather than sitting under them. We do not pour concrete, but we will tell your concrete contractor exactly what the enclosure needs from theirs.

Mansard or gable

A mansard slopes around the perimeter to a flat top. It is the common pool cage form here: lower overall height, less material, a lower profile to the wind, and it sits comfortably under a single-story roof line. The flat top is its weakness — leaves and debris settle on it and it sheds water lazily.

A gable peaks along a ridge. It sheds water and leaves properly, gives real headroom over the middle of the pool, and looks far better against a two-story elevation where a mansard can look squashed. It costs more, it is taller, and being taller and steeper it presents more to the wind — which means larger members to carry the same design wind speed. That cost is not the contractor being greedy, it is the consequence of the shape.

Decisions worth making before drawings

• Where the door goes. Not just convenient — think about which way it swings, what it swings into, and the walk from the house when it is raining.
• Bay spacing. Fewer, wider bays mean fewer posts in your view and deeper beams to span them.
• Whether the cage is your pool barrier. If it is, the door must be self-closing and self-latching with the latch positioned out of a small child’s reach. That is a code requirement about drowning, and it is cheaper and neater to design in than to add on.
• The super gutter. On most cages the gutter along the house side is structure as well as drainage. It has to be pitched properly to a real outlet, because standing water in a super gutter is a mosquito nursery on a structure you built to keep insects out.
• Kick plates. Cheap now, and they save the bottom panels for the life of the cage.

The timeline, realistically

Build time is rarely the long part. Engineering and permit review take what they take, inspections get scheduled when the department can schedule them, and aluminum extrusion in a specific color is not always on a shelf. We would rather give you a date that accounts for all of that than a hopeful one that slips three times.