mike C writes:
Has anyone here rescreened the roof of a pool enclosure?
I did, over 1000 sq ft of it, some of it 16 ft above grade. It came out
better than the usual "pro" job, because they don't care about getting the
screens tight. All the jobs I see flap in the breeze, mine are all still
tight as a drum years later.
The technique is to get yourself on a sturdy footing so at least your
shoulders and chest reach through the panel being screened. Then you work
from above, while standing underneath. You can start anywhere, but you
have to finish a run of panels where you can reach above from outside the
enclosure, kind of like not tiling yourself into a corner. This takes some
careful planning.
Most structures can't support your weight to do with work. It also takes a
long time to do a good job, such that I wouldn't possibly trust myself
climbing and perching like that. One false move and you have a broken
neck.
Scaffolding is the key. Doing it with only ladders is possible, but is
quite an athletic performance. What I did was buy two 16 ft articulating
ladders, and a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, which made a very sturdy yet easily
moved scaffold, with the ladders side-by-side like upside-down U's and the
plywood flat on top. This gave me a 5-foot platform for the 8-foot part of
the ceiling. For the 16-ft high areas, I put a sturdy stepladder on top of
that. Stacking ladders like this can be unsteady, so you need good quality
ones. Once you're in position, you can steady yourself against the
enclosure framing. You can C-clamp the ladder to the framing if need be.
This work is many hours long, and you will really appreciate having a flat
and solid scaffold to stand on instead of a wobbly ladder rung. The only
real expense was a 2nd articulating ladder (I already owned one for general
tasks) and the lumber, these ladders are less than $200.
I also made a bridge across the 18-foot-wide filled pool consisting of
2x10-12's lapped to 20-foot lengths, as 3 joists with a plywood floor.
This held up the scaffold/ladder/me to reach above the pool. A regular
extension ladder was used to reach the outside edges (terminations of panel
runs). This was too heavy to lift and move down the length of the pool,
but it was easily nudged from spot to spot via cleats with 2x4's as levers.
At one point I had to lift it across a pool ladder, and I used a come-along
hung from the (open, no screens) enclosure frame. I would have preferred a
lighter aluminum scaffolding platform to bridge the pool, but the size that
reaches across the 18-foot "pond" would have been very expensive, not to
mention shaky.
This was a big job, and took a long time standing outdoors. Make sure you
have the stamina to get through it. Try an easy panel or two and estimate
how long the whole job will take.
Richard Kinch
Palm Beach County, Florida USA
http://www.truetex.com