Insect and mosquito screens for villa windows and doors in Bali

Most villas in Bali are designed to be open: big sliding doors, louvred windows, high ceilings that let the air move. That is also an open invitation to mosquitoes, flies and the occasional bat, and dengue is a year-round fact here rather than a holiday story. A screen that fits properly lets you keep the doors open in the evening and the air conditioning off.

The difficulty is the openings. A 3 m sliding door needs a screen that runs on its own track without becoming a trip hazard; a window that opens outwards needs the screen on the inside; a bedroom facing the garden needs mesh the cat cannot shred. We measure each opening and choose the type for it, rather than fitting one product everywhere.

Which screen for which opening

• Fixed screens. An aluminium frame with mesh, clipped into the window opening. The simplest and cheapest option, for windows that are opened rarely or open outwards.
• Hinged screen doors. A framed mesh door with a closer, for kitchen and service doors used many times a day.
• Sliding screen doors. A mesh leaf running on its own track in front of the glass door. Robust and economical per m², but the track adds a rail at the threshold.
• Pleated (plissé) screens. The mesh folds like an accordion into a slim side box and runs on a floor guide only a few millimetres high. The usual choice for wide sliding and stacking doors to the terrace.
• Retractable roll screens. The mesh rolls into a cassette at the head or side — for windows and doors where nothing should be visible when the screen is not in use.

Mesh, frames and salt air

Standard fibreglass mesh does not rust, which makes it a good default near the coast, but sun makes it brittle on west- and north-facing openings over the years. Where pets live in the villa we fit a heavier pet-resistant mesh; where the screen also guards a ground-floor door we can fit stainless security mesh. Frames are powder-coated aluminium with stainless fixings, because a white frame with brown rust streaks is the usual result of cheap screws by the sea.

Mesh is a wearing part. On sunny, exposed openings plan to re-mesh after several years; the frames last much longer, and re-meshing costs a fraction of a new screen. We can re-mesh screens fitted by others too, as long as the frame is still sound.

Screens for an open-plan villa

Some villas have no doors to screen at all — a living pavilion open on three sides, a joglo, an open bathroom. There the options are a screened inner room, usually the bedroom, retractable screens across the main openings, or nets over the beds. We will tell you honestly which openings can be screened without spoiling the architecture, and where a net is the better answer. For balconies where the worry is children, pets or monkeys rather than insects, see our balcony safety nets.