Super Screen / No-See-Um Installation in St. Augustine, FL

Salt marshes along the Matanzas River push Culicoides midge pressure hard through October — and neighborhoods like Davis Shores in 32080 and the canal-front streets off Holmes Boulevard in 32086 feel it every calm evening from late spring on. Standard 18x14 fiberglass mesh lets them straight through; at roughly 1.5mm, those midges treat that opening like open air. Phifer's 20x20 BetterVue is the practical fix — closes the midge gap while still moving enough breeze through the cage that you can actually sit outside.

Most pool cages in 32084 and 32086 went up during the Florida construction booms of the late 1980s through mid-2000s. Original Phifer or New York Wire fiberglass on those frames has been taking St. Johns County UV for 20-plus years now — it goes brittle, pulls out of the spline groove at corners, and sags between frame members. On Anastasia Island, a lot of 1950s–1960s concrete-block homes had lanais retrofitted later with narrow 2x2 aluminum framing; those spline grooves are often cracked or debris-packed by now. Crescent Beach homes near the Matanzas Inlet add salt air to the equation, which corrodes the fasteners and accelerates mesh degradation faster than anything inland. St. Augustine cage owners near the Intracoastal also deal with accelerated frame oxidation — anodized aluminum holds up better than powder-coated finishes in that salt environment, and it's worth confirming frame condition before any rescreen.