Screen Door Closer

A screen door closer can be helpful if you are having problems with insects getting in because the screen door is constantly left open. Its good for children and for pets because it will automatically close the door behind them. Having adjustable is good because you can fine tune the closing speed as well as making it work with different widths of doors.

Adjustable force screen door closer

USA Customers

   

Canadian Customers

   

How the adjustable force screen door closer works:

Have you ever seen those keychains where the keys are kept on the end of a long thin spring loaded chain attached to a housing that clips on your belt?   

When you are finished with the keys the chain springs back to the housing. The closer works the same way. There is a housing that mounts on the slider, and a long spring loaded string which gets attached to the door frame.

When you open the screen door, the string pulls out. As soon as you let go, the spring pulls on the string and closes it.

One thing to watch out for is that it wont work properly if your slider is hard to open. If you have a problem with rollers or a damaged frame, get it fixed first before installing a closer.

The slider needs to glide open and closed easily for the closer to work properly.

Screen closers come in a couple of different types. The most common are small plastic housing's that mount on the top. 

They have a string which pulls out of the housing and attaches to the door jamb.

Other types have a housing which resembles a long thin plastic tube. The tube still gets mounted to the slider.

These also have a string which pulls out and attaches to the door jamb.

Both types use spring pressure to close the door.

Before purchasing a screen door closer, make sure your screen door slides easily. The closer wont work with a door that is hard to open. If the door wont slide get the rollers fixed.

The closer pictured installs on the bottom (or the top) of a sliding screen door. On the side furthest away from the lock.

There are smaller, more compact screen door closers available on Amazon from time to time. I say time to time because they seem to be listed for a while and then they disappear only to return under a different brand name or manufacturer.

The Shimido brand closer below has a lot of good reviews and one really good advantage is that it works with more than just sliding screen doors. Its basically the size and shape of a small tape measure with a plastic case. Tt has a steel wire that extends about 36 inches. So you cant use it on screen doors wider than 32 inches. If you do the cable will get stuck and will not go back in.

Its quite cheap and is offered in packs of 2 or 4 and in white or black, I have shown the ads for the black ones below. 

At the time of writing there were about a dozen different brand names for this Shimodo closer all with different prices. I am pretty sure they are all made by the same company. Just different companies selling them on Amazon. Always check the reviews since the customer service of these other companies may not be as good.

These are USA Amazon ads. If you are in Canada or another country you will probably have to do a search in Amazon.ca to see if they are available or contact me in case I have some available in Canada.