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Rust stains on pool cage screws and anchors
Streaks running down from a screw head or a gutter fastener mean the screw itself is corroding, not the aluminium frame around it. On a cage built before 2000 — 61.2% of Winter Springs’ recorded enclosures were — plain steel self-tapping screws were the standard fastener, and they are often the actual reason new mesh will not hold, more than the mesh itself.
Why this matters more than a cosmetic stain
Rust does not just discolour the extrusion. As steel corrodes it expands — a process sometimes called rust-jacking — which swells and eventually cracks the screw channel it sits in. A channel in that condition will not grip a new spline correctly even after a perfect rescreen, which is why a quote that skips checking the fasteners can produce a rescreen that fails again within a season.
What a proper check looks for
- Rust streaks below screw heads at the gutter, beam or upright connections.
- Screw heads that spin without biting when tested gently.
- Visible swelling or hairline cracking in the extrusion around a fastener.
- Which parts of the cage are affected — often the lowest course of panels and the super gutter, where moisture sits longest.
Published Florida market ranges: corroded upright (post) replacement $300–$700 per post; beam replacement $400–$1,200 per beam; super gutter repair $35–$75 per linear foot. Source: A Screen Repair, Orlando, published 2026 pricing guide. These are researched market estimates - ranges published in 2026 by other Florida screen contractors and cost-guide sites, statewide or Orlando-metro rather than Winter Springs-specific. Winter Springs Rescreening’s own rate starts at $1.76 per square foot, installed — the real floor against the ranges shown.
Rust and fastener questions
Why do the screws rust if the frame is aluminium?
Because the screws usually are not aluminium. Cages built through the 1980s and 1990s — the era that dominates this city’s stock — commonly used plain steel self-tapping screws in the aluminium extrusion. Steel in a hot, humid, chlorinated-pool-adjacent environment corrodes, and as it rusts it expands, which is what actually swells and cracks the screw channel.
Can rusted screws just be replaced one at a time?
Sometimes, if the channel itself has not swelled or cracked. Once the channel has jacked open from rust expansion, a new screw of the same size no longer bites, and the fix is either an oversized fastener, a sleeved repair, or replacing the affected upright or beam — published ranges run $300–$700 per post and $400–$1,200 per beam.
- Why do screen splines keep popping out? — the mesh-side symptom of the same fastener problem
- Pool cage rescreen cost — when frame work adds to a rescreen quote
- Service areas — which subdivisions carry the oldest fastener stock
Send a close-up of a screw head
That one photo usually tells us whether this is a rescreen or a frame job first.
- Phone
- (689) 330-0968
- Serving
- Winter Springs, FL 32708 and Seminole County