A storm door is an outer door with a glass panel that hangs in front of your entry door and stands up to weather all year. A screen door is a lighter door with mesh in the frame, built for airflow in warm weather and little else. Most storm doors do both jobs, because the glass gives way to a screen when spring arrives, which is what makes a plain screen door the narrower of the two choices.
What Each Door Is Built For
The Storm Door
A storm door hangs on the outside of the entry opening in its own frame, and it closes against that frame the way any exterior door does. Through the cold months the panel is glass, so wind, rain and snow land on aluminum and glass instead of your front door. It carries its own latch, and usually its own lock, so the entrance keeps a closed, latched barrier even when the inner door stands open.
We source our storm doors from Fox Aluminum Products, built with heliarc-welded corners, interlocking hinges and heavy aluminum screens, in finishes chosen to sit well with the entry behind them. Welded corners earn their keep on a door that gets slammed and shoved by wind: corners held together by screws work loose over the years, the frame loses its shape, and the door starts to bind against it.
The Screen Door
A screen door is one frame with mesh stretched across it. There is no glass to swap and no weather panel, and the frame is usually lighter, because it is not being asked to hold off a February storm. Its job is to move air through the doorway while keeping insects out and small children in.
That makes it a seasonal door. It does nothing for the entry door in January, nothing for security, and a light frame on a wall that catches the wind leads a short life. There are still entries where a screen door is the right call, and a later section says which ones.
Full-View and Ventilating Styles
Storm doors come in two broad layouts, and the one you pick decides how much of your entry door shows and how you get air. A full-view door gives almost its whole face over to a single panel, glass through the winter and a heavy aluminum screen in its place once the weather turns. Your entry door stays visible behind it all year, which is the whole point if you chose a handsome one.
A ventilating door keeps the glass in place and puts a screen behind part of it. You slide the glass to uncover the screen, so nothing gets carried out to the garage and nothing gets stored for the season. You see a little less of the door behind it, and you gain a changeover that takes seconds instead of an afternoon.
The other variable is how much solid panel sits at the bottom of the door. A solid lower panel absorbs the boots, the kicks and the dog, which is why back entries and houses with pets often get one, while a full-view door in the same spot takes that abuse on glass. Styles run further than these three, and our longer piece on what a storm door is covers the rest.
Why a Storm Door Matters in Michigan Weather
Southeast Michigan is hard on a front door. Wind-driven rain and lake-effect snow soak the bottom rail, freeze and thaw work at every joint through the winter, road salt gets tracked up onto the finish, and a west-facing entry bakes in the afternoon sun all summer. A storm door takes all of that first, which is why the door behind it still looks like the door you chose.
There is a quieter effect as well. With both doors shut, the space between them holds a pocket of still air, and still air is a poor conductor of heat, so the entry feels less drafty on a January morning. The entry door's weatherstripping also stays dry, which means it stays flexible instead of freezing stiff and taking a set.
Then spring comes and the same door changes jobs. Screen in, glass out or slid aside, front door standing open, and the entrance moves air all day without letting a single insect through. That is the part homeowners tend to notice first, and it is the reason a storm door often replaces the idea of a screen door entirely.
When a Screen Door Alone Is Enough
A screen door makes sense where the weather never really reaches the door. A deep entry set back under a porch roof, a covered breezeway, or a door on the sheltered side of the house is already shielded by the building, so most of the argument for a glass panel goes away.
It also makes sense when you only want a door there in season. Hanging one in May and taking it down in October is a reasonable way to live with a door you want for the summer and not the winter, and it leaves the entry clear the rest of the year. Back doors, side doors and porch doors are where that usually happens.
Weigh two things before you settle on it. A screen door adds nothing to security and nothing at all in winter, so if you want air in July and a shield in January, one storm door covers both jobs. That is usually where the decision ends up.
Hardware and Installation
Hardware and Closers
The hardware on a storm door does more than it looks. The closer, the small cylinder running from the door to the jamb, pulls the door shut behind you instead of letting it bang, and it adjusts so the door closes gently or firmly. Most have a hold-open feature, so the door waits while you carry groceries through.
A wind chain is the other piece worth knowing about. It limits how far a gust can throw the door, which is what saves the closer and the hinges on an exposed wall. The latch is usually keyed, so the entrance gains a lock in front of your deadbolt, and interlocking hinges spread every gust and slam along the whole edge of the door instead of into a few screws.
Measuring and Hanging
A storm door is measured to the opening it will hang in, not to the door behind it. The width gets checked at the top, the middle and the bottom, and the smallest of the three is the one that counts, because an older opening is rarely square. The height is taken from the sill up to the head, and the mounting surface around the opening has to be flat and solid enough to screw into.
Hanging it is mostly a matter of getting the details right. The door goes on the opposite side from the entry door so the two do not fight each other as you walk through, the closer bracket has to land in solid wood, the sill expander has to meet the threshold with no gap left under it, and the frame has to go on plumb or the door will start to drag within a year.
How to Decide
Start with the opening, then the door. Four questions settle most of it:
- How exposed is the entry? Weather that reaches the door points to a storm door. A deep, covered entry can get by with a screen.
- Do you want the entry door seen? Full-view shows it off. A ventilating door hides a little of it and saves you the seasonal swap.
- What happens at the bottom of the door? Kids, pets and a busy back entry argue for a solid lower panel.
- Is a second lock worth something to you? A storm door latches in front of the deadbolt and can stay locked while the inner door stands open.
The quickest way to settle it is to stand in front of both. Our Southgate showroom is 4,000 sq. ft. of full-size windows and doors you can operate, so you can slide a ventilating panel, feel what a closer does, and hold finishes up against the color of your house.
When you are ready, book a free in-home estimate. We measure the opening, walk through the options, and give you the full price in writing before anything is ordered. Financing is available, our own employees hang the door rather than subcontractors, and the installation carries our 15-year labor warranty on top of the manufacturer's warranty on the door itself.
Published by Adkins & Sons, a family-owned window, door and siding company in Southgate, Michigan since 1979. See our entry, patio and storm doors
