This little piece of hardware is one of my new favorite things! As the springs on our screen door age and weather with the salt air, finding a way to keep the screen doors closed has been a challenge. Sub-optimal solutions have included a stick through the door handles and a big wedge outside to keep the door shut. But neither of those allows the door to stay shut in such a way that it can be opened again from either side. After seeing one of these on a neighbor’s house, it took us a while to find one because I didn’t know what it was called. (a catch. Duh!)
If you already knew about this, you are probably wondering how I could be so hardware-challenged, but it is such a big simple pleasure that I had to share. It keeps the dog in and other four and six legged critters out.
I’ve been looking on line for a solution for my door and stumbled across these catches. I’d never heard of them either. What I don’t understand is how you close the door one they are installed. From your picture it looks like they would prevent the doors from closing all the way.
Hi Steve,
The latches work great. We’ve had them installed for 6 weeks with no problems. They took about 4 minutes apiece to install, maybe less. One side of the latch swings up and out of the way when you open the door. The other side causes it to swing down and out of the way when you close the door. The whole thing is spring loaded, keeping the door pressed into the closed position. The tension is sufficient for even fairly strong winds, but still low enough to allow any human to open the door easily. I’ve actually removed the old hook we used to use to keep the door from blowing open.
You can get them at Lowes (and similar stores). See http://www.lowes.com/pd_120069-1277-CD210_0__?productId=3167575&Ntt=screen+door+catch&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Dscreen%2Bdoor%2Bcatch&facetInfo= for example. The price just now was $4.13. At that price, it’s definitely worth giving one a try.
Good Luck.
Reggie