Fly screens
A fly screen or fly fastener is a device that is placed in front of a window or door to prevent insects such as flies and mosquitoes from entering a room.
A fly screen similar to a mosquito net is made of fine textile fabric or wire mesh with a mesh size of approximately one millimeter, in order not to let insects through, but also to let in enough light and air. Recently, translucent textile fleeces have also been on the market for this purpose, which on the one hand should prevent allergenic pollen from entering the room and on the other hand also keep insects away. Professional fly screens are made of plastic-coated glass fiber fabric with a mesh size of around 1.4 by 1.2 millimeters. Glass fiber fabric is extremely weather-resistant and can remain on the window at all times.
Simple fly screens are attached between the window and frame with self-adhesive Velcro fasteners . For framed insect screens, on the other hand, hangers that are attached to the window are used. With their help, it is possible to open or detach this frame separately. Since there are hardly any insects outside in the cold season, this is particularly useful in winter to prevent weathering. However, depending on where you live, it can make sense to use fly screens even in winter. They not only protect against insects, but also against the intrusion of spiders. While the insects retreat to their hiding places in the cold season, the spiders remain active. Because of the desire for warmth, they often try to penetrate into well-tempered apartments and settle in.
In the United States, fly screens are used routinely.
Fly screens are available in white and black-brown. Dark materials allow a view that is obscured by less scattered light. Light-colored fabrics, on the other hand, provide a certain level of privacy, similar to curtains , especially if you look from the daylight outside in the direction of the much darker interior. Remnants of dead insects, their excretions and dust are barely visible on dark material. Cracks are more visible in light-colored fabric, these can be repaired by fine sewing. All fabrics prevent bird strikes .
Every fly screen must be tensioned in two dimensions, i.e. lengthways and crossways, so that the wind cannot essentially trigger any fluttering movement that would damage the fabric - similar to flags - over a long period of time.
Openable fly screens
If you want to be able to reach through, lean out and / or walk through windows and doors, there are several options.
- In addition to a barred window for insect-blocking ventilation, provide a window for unhindered opening and only use this for a short time if necessary.
- Unhooking a fly screen including its frame, which is attached to the window frame at typically 4 points.
- Loosening a differently attached fly screen - Velcro on the bare screen and magnets on the frame are possible.
- Create a passage with a self-closing flap for cats and other pets.
- Making the grid frame movable by means of guides parallel to the window level.
- Forming a lattice frame that opens outwards by pivoting it open, for example for an inwardly opening balcony door.
- Dissolve the grid into individually hanging down, about 10 cm wide strips that magnetically adhere to each other at overlaps. The strips are firmly suspended at the top and loaded with a weight strip at the bottom.
A bead or string curtain in a doorway acts as a flight barrier for birds and as a privacy screen, but it is only a minor inhibitor of insects.
On tents, car cabins and other things
Highly flexible, mostly white fly screens, often knitted and therefore distortable, are firmly sewn to the entrance openings of tents as a separate closing level on one side and can be attached to the tent skin, typically the inner tent, on the rest of the circumference with a double zipper. Immediately outside the tent is closed wind and rainproof with tent fabric using an all-round or two-way zip. Ventilation openings are closed with a firmly sewn insect screen. Pass-through openings and shafts can be closed sufficiently insect-proof by tying or pulling a hem with a cord.
Insect screens are often visible on motorhome windows and doors, as well as concealed in the ventilation systems of vehicle cabins and in front of the air inlets of coolers, brakes and cockpit ventilation on motorcycles. Even electrical switch boxes that are outside, computers and control technology are protected against the ingress of insects with fine grids. These can create short circuits, change electrical parameters and thereby trigger malfunctions.
Mosquito nets can be mounted like a tent over beds to keep the sleeping area mosquito-free. Strollers are sometimes draped with loosely woven fabric, such as a diaper, which dampens the sun's rays, but also gradually protects against insects such as wasps.
Fly-catchers are often designed as a piece of stable, but flexible net that lets air through when hit quickly, but forms a barrier for insects, i.e. stops the hunted insect and crushes it when it hits a wall.
Bike helmet and body protection
Bike helmets have plenty of ventilation slots for cooling. For a number of years, these openings in good helmets have been closed with foamed-in grids to repel insects that could otherwise be driven between the helmet and head by fast airflow.
Textile hats with a wide brim and an insect net hanging down from it are equipment for beekeepers ( beekeeper hat), naturalists and outdoor activities as protection from bees, mosquitoes and other insects. Such mosquito protection worn on the body can also be designed as a veil, sleeve, leg or full body suit (mosquito suit).
Risk of accident
A fly screen helps to visually stop the sense of balance when one's face is in the plane of a window, but it does not form a mechanically stable barrier that can support a person's body weight. Children in particular who do not recognize this are at risk of falling if they lean against it and possibly also lift the grate up and thus out of a holder.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Six -year-old fell out of the window orf.at, May 31, 2018, accessed May 31, 2018.