Everyone should look into solar screens for their homes. Solar screens are windows screens that feature a more dense pattern than a regular screen, and are crafted out of a material that is designed to block light and heat from entering your home.

For me, I was tired of light shining into my living room in the afternoons/evenings. My living room windows unfortunately face west, so it kind of sucks because the light shines in during prime time television. So I bought 3 do it yourself solar screen kits from a local vendor.

Building the screens was much easier than I had anticipated, after a little bit of trial and error with the first one. In the past, I have always been horrible of rolling screens, with the stupid roller, and the splines, and all that. Basically, the screen kits consisted of 4 corner pieces that you lodged into the screen frame pieces, which you cut with a hacksaw to the height and width of your windows. I hacked the pieces, installed the corners, checked to make sure they fit (the first couple of times they didn't because I measured wrong like a dumb ass), then laid the screen down flat to roll in the screen part.

I found that the best way to do this was to put on some sort of knee pads so you can easy scoot around the screen on the ground. I used old hockey shin guards for this, and they worked like a champ. Keeping the screen taught while rolling it down into the groove was a little bit difficult, but I got it done. Once a foot or so was in the groove, I would lay in the spline piece, and roll it down into the screen inside the groove using the other end of the roller. When I got to the forth corner (the one I started on), there was a little bit of buckling, so I would undo about a foot from the first side I did, pull it taught, then roll it back in. They turned out perfectly.

I did run into one issue where I did not have enough screen to complete the third one. The instructions that came with the kit said "cut the screen the size of the frame with a little bit to spare". I was super pissed when I didn't have enough, but ultimately I suppose I could have planned ahead a little better. Nonetheless, I crafted an email to the company, explaining what had happened, and that I thought it was their fault because there instructions were not precise. Apparently, they agreed with me and offered to send me out a new pieces for the third screen free of charge (woot!).

The screen were Suntex brand material and they are designed to cut 90% of the heat from entering the windows. I would have to say their claim is fairly accurate. After a couple of hours in direct sunlight, you can touch the windows on the inside of the house, and they feel the same temperature as the room, give or take a couple of degrees. Also, they block most of the light, so everything worked out great.