How to Maintain the Bug Screen on Your Wrought Iron Door

Wrought iron doors are some of the lowest-maintenance doors you can get. Outside of some regular cleaning, you rarely have to do anything to an iron door to keep it in good shape for decades.

However, some features aren’t quite as resilient. That includes bug screens.

Today, we’ll show you how to maintain the bug screen with just a couple of standard supplies and without damaging it.

Let’s get started.

Why Should You Clean Your Bug Screen?

Before we dive into the cleaning process, you might be wondering why it’s important to keep your bug screen in top condition to begin with. A lot of homeowners neglect it, and it doesn’t usually look like a problem. At least, for a while.

Built-in bug screens come with many benefits. For example, it does a pretty good job of hiding dirt and grime since it’s a wire mesh. However, it gets a lot dirtier than you might think.

Every time dust blows, a storm kicks up, or the kids touch it on a hot day with sticky popsicle-covered hands, gunk gets stuck between the fine holes of that mesh.

That clogs it up, and it can actually attract more bugs depending on what is getting on the screen. However, it’s worse than that.

All that debris sitting on the mesh can corrode it over time. Especially if it’s a metal wire mesh. Synthetic meshes will get weak and brittle.

If you just let your mesh sit around collecting gunk and debris, eventually, you’ll end up replacing it. Depending on the design of the iron door, how the screen is made, and other factors, it might be more difficult than it sounds. So, it’s best to keep it in good shape.

What You’ll Need to Clean Your Bug Screen

Cleaning your bug screen is pretty simple, and you’ll only need a handful of basic supplies that you likely already have in your home.

We’ll list everything, but you might not need every item depending on what steps you follow later on and the design of your door.

Warm water: Just warm water from the tap is more than enough.
Gentle soap: A gentle dish soap that breaks up grease will do the job perfectly fine.
Scrub brush: A cleaning brush, or even an old toothbrush you don’t plan to use anymore, is good to have on hand.
Screwdriver: You might want a screwdriver with a bit that matches the screws on your screen if applicable.
Dry towel: This might get stained beyond repair. So, we recommend using an old towel you don’t care about.
Hose or spray bottle: A standard gardening hose or a spray bottle can speed things up.

Cleaning the Bug Screen on Your Wrought Iron Door: Step-by-Step

We’re going to go over each part of the process step-by-step. Some steps can be skipped, but we’ll note that as we go along to give you a few options on how to tackle it.

1. Remove the Screen

It’s often easier to get top-notch results if you take the bug screen out of the door. This isn’t a requirement, but it lets you clean the inner part of the screen’s frame, you can do all the messy cleaning steps somewhere other than your front doorstep, and you can move the screen around to make things more comfortable.

You can also leave the screen in. You won’t get to the inner parts of the frame, but you can typically clean the entirety of the exposed screen parts without too much effort.

Just accept that water is going to get all over your doorstep, and you’ll be moving around the door to work with both sides of the screen.

Taking the screen out depends on the door design. If there are easily accessible screws, just use your screwdriver, and it should pop out without any hassles. If it’s too complicated to work with, skip taking it out. You don’t want to damage your door worrying about the tiniest details.

2. Soak and Scrub

Start by using your scrub brush and the warm water to scrub away any loose debris. Don’t take too much time on this step. You’ll be scrubbing it again, and this is mostly to get everything wet.

Just get the easy stuff off while you do it.

3. Dish Soap and Scrub

Once everything is wet, add some dish soap to your warm water, or apply it with the brush, and start scrubbing away all the dirt.

Any time you’re scrubbing your screen, you want to make sure you’re being gentle. The screen isn’t delicate if it’s in good shape, but if you get a bit overzealous, you can mess it up. Take your time, and you’ll get the grime off without any issues.

4. Rinse and Dry

Once you’ve knocked all the grime loose, you have a few options to rinse it. We recommend a spray bottle if you kept the screen in the door, but if you were able to remove it, using your garden hose on a lower pressure setting is a great way to rinse it off, too.

Try to get all the soap and any bits of debris that are clinging to off the screen before you wrap up the process.

Once it’s rinsed off, towel dry as much of the excess water as possible. If you did remove the screen, once it’s towel dried, you can put it back in your door. The sun will take care of drying up any residual water.

Maintaining Your Screen Door and Limiting Cleaning

Wrought iron doors never go out of style, but even they aren’t immune to neglect. While you can’t completely prevent your screen door from gathering dirt and grime, you should do what you can to keep it in top condition, including the bug screen, of course.

Primarily, try to notice and clean up obvious problems quickly. Such as kids with messy hands touching the screen or knocking off snow, giving it a quick brush after a dusty day, etc.

Other than that, inspect your screen about once a week to see if there are any problems that need to be cleaned up. When you notice dirt buildup, it’s time to clean.

Start with a High-Quality Iron Door from Luxe

So, how to maintain the bug screen on your wrought iron door without damaging it or making a big mess? As you can see, it doesn’t require too much of your time and effort. With just a few common household items and a bit of care, you can keep your screen looking nice and clean.

At Luxe Iron Doors, we’re proud to create doors that look great and stand up to daily use. Whether you’re interested in classic single doors or double doors, or want matching gates and custom railings to complete the look, we’ve got you covered.

How to Clean and Maintain the Bug Screen on Your Wrought Iron Door