Vinyl screen doors are a modern alternative to wooden storm doors. Some of the high end versions are as ornate and of similar quality to their wooden versions. The vinyl storm door has the modern screen frame hardware, which makes screen replacement much easier.
Unlike wooden storm doors however, when the frame of a vinyl storm door breaks its very difficult to repair. Storm doors get opened and closed a lot. They get kicked closed, they get kicked open. Over the years the frame in a wooden door starts to loosen. That’s when people start screwing on angle brackets and adding screws and nails to the frame to keep it from falling apart. Its pretty hard to repair a vinyl door this way because vinyl wont hold screws or nails very well.
Vinyl storm doors sometimes are made entirely of vinyl. Vinyl can dry out and crack from exposure to the sun, especially if it is thinner the 1/16” . Repeated opening and closings can crack vinyl storm doors at the bottom or top corners. With a totally vinyl door, when that happens you pretty much have to buy a new door.
Some vinyl doors overcome this by having a steel core frame with vinyl over top. This helps a lot. The added steel frame makes these doors more expensive but more durable. Just make sure the vinyl over the steel frame is thicker than 1/16”.
Generally with vinyl storm doors, you will want to buy the thickest, strongest door you can find. One that can stand up to many years of hard use.
Go back to Wooden screen doors