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Cairns, QLD

Security Doors in Smithfield

Made to measure in Cairns, fitted to the openings you want to be able to leave open, and repaired on site when the lock or the rollers give out.

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Cairns Security Doors makes security doors and window screens to measure for Smithfield houses, and repairs the ones already fitted. Nine in ten occupied homes here are separate houses, and about a third of those are rented, so the person ordering the screen is sometimes the owner living behind it and sometimes a landlord or an agent acting for the house. Either way the shape of the job is the same: a front hinged door, a back slider, a run of bedroom windows. Cairns Regional Council tells residents to install insect screens so the breeze can enter without the bugs. Tell us which openings you want left open and we will measure them.

Two storey modern home with security screens enclosing the poolside patio

Half the reason to screen a house in Smithfield has nothing to do with break-ins. Cairns Regional Council's design guide for tropical homes puts the other half plainly: install insect screens so the breeze can enter without the bugs, because inviting air movement into the home is essential to staying cool and to reducing the effects of high humidity. That is the argument for leaving a house open through the wet. A security screen is what makes leaving it open a sensible thing to do, and on the ranges that carry fibreglass flyscreen mesh as standard behind the grille, the panel keeping the insects out is the same panel carrying the lock. Cairns Security Doors makes doors and window screens to measure and repairs the ones already on the house. On a Smithfield house that means the opening you actually have rather than a catalogue size: the front hinged door, the back slider, the bedroom windows. Council's Smithfield local plan calls the major centre an activity and employment node for the daily and weekly needs of Cairns Northern Beaches residents, and James Cook University's Nguma-bada campus is in the same suburb.

Why security doors matters in Smithfield

Two people buy this product in Smithfield, and they are not the same person.

The first is an owner occupier. At the 2021 Census, 91.0 percent of occupied private dwellings here were separate houses, 2,103 of them, against 74.8 percent for Queensland. No body corporate, no strata approval, no shared entry. The job is a front hinged door, a back slider and a run of bedroom windows.

The second is a landlord or a property manager. Smithfield's rental share is 32.2 percent, fractionally below the Queensland rate of 33.1 percent, so this is not an unusually tenanted suburb. The difference is not how many rentals there are but what they are: 91.0 percent of dwellings detached and 32.2 percent rented means between a quarter and a third of the separate houses here have to be tenanted. That is renting at house scale. Median age is 34 against 38 statewide, median weekly rent 420 dollars against 365, and only 5.5 percent of dwellings sat unoccupied against 9.3 percent statewide, a market where a house does not stay idle. Council names the major centre and the university campus as the suburb's two activity nodes, along the McGregor Road corridor.

What both want from a screen here is the same, and it is not mainly about break-ins. The council guide says air movement is essential to staying cool in this climate and names the insect screen as the way to have it without the bugs. This is an inland locality of about 13 square kilometres, with no coastline inside its boundary and no Barron River frontage, holding Cattana Wetlands on Dunne Road, an 80 hectare council nature conservation park with a 420 metre boardwalk. A suburb built beside a wetland is a suburb where people have the windows open.

The complication arrives with the rain. Official Queensland mapping shows the locality threaded with watercourses and constructed drainage, including Atika Creek and Moores Gully, almost all of it intermittent or ephemeral, so it fills after rain and then sits still; three constructed reservoirs inside the locality are perennial. Council states that freshwater mosquitoes breed quickly in water pooling after rainfall, and Queensland Health names permanent fresh water as habitat for a Ross River virus vector, with most northern and central Queensland cases falling between February and May.

So the brief for a Smithfield house is a screen that lets the opening stay open, made to the opening rather than a stock size, and kept in good condition with no visible damage, which is the state's own wording.

The house is let, and a lot of trade copy implies a legal duty to fit a security screen that does not exist.

Smithfield is 91.0 percent separate houses, 2,103 of them, against 74.8 percent for Queensland, and 32.2 percent of occupied dwellings here are rented against 33.1 percent statewide. Those two figures bound each other: a rental share just under the state rate attached to an almost entirely detached housing stock puts between a quarter and a third of the houses here in someone else's hands, which is a different job from letting units. The Residential Tenancies Authority is direct about what the law reaches. Minimum housing standards require functioning locks or latches on all external doors and windows that can be reached without a ladder, and premises that are weatherproof, structurally sound, in good repair and free from vermin, damp and mould. Where an owner has installed additional security measures such as a security screen or grilles, the property still has to meet the standard by having a functioning lock or latch. A screen is not a lock. We do not tell an owner that the law requires a screen, because it does not. We make screens to measure where an owner wants them, and we replace the lock cylinders, complete locks and latching hardware that have stopped working, which is the part the standard actually reaches. If a legislative citation is wanted, the standards sit in Schedule 6 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Regulation 2025.

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Side by side comparison of a garden view seen directly and through black perforated aluminium screen mesh

Water sits around this suburb after rain, and the openings you most want open are the way in for what breeds in it.

Official Queensland water mapping shows the Smithfield locality threaded with watercourses and constructed drainage, including Atika Creek and Moores Gully. Almost the whole network is intermittent or ephemeral rather than permanently flowing, so it fills after rain and then stops moving, and three constructed reservoirs inside the locality are perennial. Cairns Regional Council states that freshwater mosquitoes breed quickly in water that is pooling after rainfall or flood events, and that they can be found breeding across the region on both private and council managed land. Queensland Health names Culex annulirostris, which breeds in permanent bodies of fresh water, and Aedes notoscriptus, which breeds in containers close to homes such as bird baths, pot plant saucers and backyard rubbish holding water, and states that in northern and central Queensland Ross River virus cases occur throughout the year with most between February and May. February is the wettest month on the Cairns Aero record, at 437.5 mm against a mean annual 2,025.5 mm. Council's plan lists screening houses first among the measures residents can take to reduce nuisance biting, and the Public Health Regulation 2018 puts a duty on the person responsible for a place to keep accumulated water there from becoming a mosquito breeding ground, naming ditches, drains, gutters and containers among its examples. Council maintains open stormwater drains so water is not held for more than five days where a drain is not flowing, which leaves the opening as the part a resident controls. We screen it: doors, windows and patio enclosures made to measure, with fibreglass flyscreen mesh where the job is insects alone and a security range where the same panel has to do both.

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Booking a measure and a fit on a house someone else lives in.

Queensland tenancy law sets the sequence, not the trade. The Residential Tenancies Authority requires 48 hours notice to a tenant before entry to carry out repairs or maintenance and 7 days notice for a routine inspection, limits routine inspections to once every 3 months, and sets entry between 8am and 6pm Monday to Saturday unless the tenant agrees otherwise. A tenant who wants to install a security system or alarm needs the owner's or manager's written permission first. Those are the RTA's rules protecting the tenant. They are not our hours. A screen job needs access twice, once to measure the opening and once to fit what was made for it, because everything is made to measure rather than pulled from a stock size. On an occupied rental that is two entries to plan for rather than one, and the notice comes before both. Say when you enquire whether the house is tenanted, and we will work to the notice the RTA requires rather than around it. Where the same entry can cover a measure on one opening and a lock, roller or track repair on another, that is one visit doing two jobs.

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Four ranges can look much the same in a photo and cost very different amounts per opening.

They are different products doing different parts of the same job. SCREENGUARD is 316 marine grade stainless steel mesh in T6 grade high tensile extruded aluminium frames, manufactured and finished in a variety of colours in Queensland, and it is the range marketed as designed to protect your view; the manufacturer records dynamic impact, knife shear, anti-jemmy, pull and probe testing for the system. PERFGUARD is perforated aluminium mesh, 2 mm thick and powder coated black, at about 40 percent view through, described by the manufacturer as corrosion resistant and suiting doors, windows, patio enclosures, privacy or sun screening; the manufacturer records the same set of tests, with hinged and sliding doors tested using three point locking hardware. Diamond Grille is the cost effective option in the range, and Colonial Casting comes in a modern style or a heritage style range for a decorative front door or to enclose a patio. An owner occupier choosing one hero front door and a landlord fitting several openings across a detached house are making different sums. The mesh choice is a real ladder rather than one pitch, and the mesh behind the frame matters too: DVA one way vision lets you see out with reduced visibility in but is a privacy mesh rather than a security product on its own, fibreglass is the standard flyscreen mesh, and pet mesh is thicker fibreglass with some give for households with pets or high traffic areas. The business frames two objections on its own product pages and answers them there: that a screen spoils the outlook, and that privacy and pets need their own solutions. Everything is made to measure rather than supplied in stock sizes, and manufactured in Cairns. Warranties belong to the manufacturers and carry their conditions: SCREENGUARD has a full 10 year manufacturer's warranty with regular maintenance using SCREENGUARD Powawash required to comply, and PERFGUARD a 7 year product warranty from date of installation, conditions apply. On a tenanted house the person who benefits from that cover is not the person living there, so the maintenance condition is an owner or agent task rather than something to assume of a tenant.

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The openings council recommends for tropical airflow are the biggest ones in the house.

Cairns Regional Council's Cool Homes guide tells residents to select window and door types that let in more breeze, naming casement windows, bi-fold doors and windows and large stacker sliding doors, and to link outdoor spaces to internal living areas with large bi-fold or sliding doors. Good tropical design points at the wide opening, and the wide opening is the one with the most panel to carry and a track that has to keep running under it. A stacker slider or a bi-fold is not a stock size. Installation of security door and window screens has its own current Australian Standard, AS 5039.2:2024, separate from AS 5039.1:2023 for classification and performance and AS 5039.3:2023 for methods of test. A screen bought right and fitted badly is not the same product. We name that suite so you have something concrete to ask about how a screen was fitted, since Standards Australia's own description puts installation in its own part, and not to suggest anyone is obliged to meet it. We measure the opening you have and make to it, which is what a wide slider or a bi-fold run requires. Cairns sits in wind region C under AS/NZS 1170.2, as Queensland Government and Cyclone Testing Station guidance states, which is a fair reason to treat how a screen is fixed to the reveal as part of the product rather than the end of the job. If you want the current test documentation for a product line, ask and we will pass on what the manufacturer supplies.

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A screen that was fine last year now sticks, jams, bounces or will not lock.

The Galvanizers Association of Australia, an industry association rather than a regulator, describes the general atmospheric principle: corrosion can only occur in the presence of an electrolyte, and the longer a surface stays wet, its time of wetness, the faster it corrodes, with dew, rainfall and high humidity all influencing the rate, and with surface orientation and crevices that hold water creating conditions for localised corrosion. It adds that corrosion rates in sheltered areas can be higher than on exposed surfaces of the same article, and that below 60 percent humidity corrosion rates are very low and can often be ignored. Mean 9am relative humidity on the Cairns Aero record does not fall below 65 percent in any month and reaches 78 percent from February to April. The parts that go first are the ones rain never reaches and never washes: the sliding door track under a deep eave, the crevices around a lock cylinder, the underside of a frame. Two entries on this business's own repair list start in exactly those places: a slider that has stopped running true on its wheels, and a cylinder gone stiff enough that the door no longer latches. On a let house the second one is more than an annoyance, because that is the condition minimum housing standards reach: what the rental has to have is a functioning lock or latch. Repairs are done on site: lock cylinders or complete locks, wheels and tracks on sliding doors, door closers, hinges, triple locks and patio bolts, and pet doors fitted to existing security doors. Queensland Government advice on stopping mosquitoes getting inside is to keep insect screens in good condition with no visible damage, which makes a torn flyscreen or a seized roller maintenance rather than an upgrade.

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SCREENGUARD 316 Stainless Steel Mesh Screens

316 marine grade stainless steel mesh in T6 grade high tensile extruded aluminium frames, manufactured and finished in a variety of colours in Queensland. The manufacturer markets the system as designed to protect your view and records dynamic impact, knife shear, anti-jemmy, pull and probe testing for it. On a Smithfield house this is the range to put behind the opening you want left open. Council's case for leaving it open is airflow, which its own guide calls essential to staying cool and to reducing the effects of high humidity. An opening that stays open is one the household looks through every day, which is why the manufacturer markets this range as designed to protect your view, and the outlook is the objection the business answers first on its own product page.

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Dark security screens on the sliding door and windows of a white painted brick home with a tropical garden bed

PERFGUARD Perforated Aluminium Screens

Perforated aluminium mesh, 2 mm thick and powder coated black, at about 40 percent view through and described by the manufacturer as corrosion resistant. It suits security doors, windows, patio enclosures, and privacy or sun screening. The manufacturer records window grilles and hinged and sliding doors passing dynamic impact, pull, jemmy, knife shear and probe testing, with the doors tested using three point locking hardware. The reduced visibility option, and the one that earns its keep on street facing rooms and ground floor bedrooms near the Smithfield major centre, which council's local plan describes as anchoring the southern end of the plan area. About 40 percent view through means you can see out of a window you have left open while the street sees considerably less in.

Ask about perforated screens
Side by side comparison of a garden view seen directly and through black perforated aluminium screen mesh

Diamond Grille Security Screens

The cost effective security screen option, with fibreglass mesh as the standard behind it, and made to measure like everything else in the range. An owner fitting one hero front door and a landlord fitting several openings across a tenanted detached house are doing different sums, and on Smithfield's own census figures a quarter to a third of the houses here are tenanted. Diamond Grille is the option that makes a whole-house run of openings a cost per opening decision rather than a single door decision, and it also takes DVA one way vision mesh where a room needs privacy as well.

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Colonial Casting Security Doors

Security doors with a modern stylish look or in a heritage style range, for a decorative front door or to enclose a patio. Enclosing the patio is the practical use in this climate. Council's tropical design guide recommends linking outdoor spaces to internal living areas with large bi-fold or sliding doors, and a cast panel screen is one way to close that opening in without the entry reading as hardware. Like Diamond Grille it can carry DVA one way vision mesh, which is a privacy mesh rather than a security product on its own.

Ask about Colonial Casting
Pair of cream decorative cast security screen doors with a scroll pattern over timber windows

Flyscreens and Specialty Mesh

Fibreglass flyscreen mesh, described as not rusting, rotting or corroding, plus DVA one way vision privacy mesh, 316 marine grade woven stainless, perforated aluminium, and pet mesh, which is thicker fibreglass with some give for households with pets or high traffic areas. Queensland Government advice on stopping mosquitoes getting inside is to cover doors and windows with insect screens and keep them in good condition with no visible damage. In a locality threaded with intermittent creeks and constructed drainage that fills after rain and then sits still, the flyscreen on a bedroom window is doing as much of that work as the door is.

Ask about mesh options
Open plan living room looking through black-framed security screen doors to a pool and palms

Onsite Repairs and Hardware Replacement

Lock cylinders and complete locks replaced where a door is not locking or closing properly, the handle is broken or the key is jamming. Wheels and tracks replaced on sliding doors that roll incorrectly, jam, bounce, fail to close or jump off the track. Door closers, hinges, triple locks and patio bolts replaced and repaired, and pet doors fitted to existing security doors. Minimum housing standards require a functioning lock or latch on every external door and window that can be reached without a ladder, and a quarter to a third of Smithfield's houses are tenanted on the suburb's own census figures. A screen door whose lock has failed is the sort of thing that gets written up on an inspection report, and in the business's own words it starts as a door not locking or closing properly, a broken handle or a jamming key. That is a repair rather than a replacement.

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Hinged security screen door fitted over a grey front door on a brick home entry
Licensed, tested, locally made

Credentials you can check

Cairns Security Doors states QBCC licence 1199847 on its own site, and the entity behind the trading name is a sole trader rather than a company. The business is family owned, the work is carried out by a licensed tradesman, and manufacturing happens in Cairns. Nothing is supplied in a stock size: every door and screen is made to the opening it was measured for. On standards, the suite in force for security door and window screens is AS 5039.1:2023 covering classification and performance, AS 5039.2:2024 covering installation, and AS 5039.3:2023 covering methods of test. Installation holding a current standard of its own is why the measure and the fit are treated here as work in their own right rather than as a delivery step.

QBCC Licensed Contractor
Queensland Building and Construction Commission licence 1199847
Verify this
Tested Security Screens
SCREENGUARD states its stainless steel mesh screens pass dynamic impact, knife shear, anti-jemmy, and pull and probe testing. PERFGUARD adds a probe test, with hinged and sliding doors tested using three point locking hardware.
10 Year Manufacturer's Warranty
SCREENGUARD products carry a full 10 year manufacturer's warranty. Regular maintenance with SCREENGUARD Powawash is required to comply.
Locally Made
Family owned and operated. Doors and screens are made to measure and manufactured in Cairns; SCREENGUARD frames are manufactured and finished in Queensland.

Questions we get asked

The house is tenanted. Does fitting a security screen satisfy the lock and latch requirement?

No. The Residential Tenancies Authority states that where an owner or property manager has installed additional security measures such as a security screen or grilles on windows or doors, the property still needs to meet minimum housing standards by having a functioning lock or latch on all external doors and windows reachable without a ladder. A screen is not a lock. If a lock or latch has failed, that is the part to put right, and we replace lock cylinders and complete locks on site.

We are close to Cattana Wetlands. Does that change what we should fit?

Not what you fit, no. Cairns Regional Council describes Cattana Wetlands as an enjoyable nature conservation park, and that is the honest way to think about it. Queensland Health's advice is not written for one street either: its prevention list names screening living and sleeping areas. Those are the rooms a household leaves open anyway. What changes from one house to the next is the opening rather than the mesh, and the opening is the thing we measure.

We leave the house open for the breeze. Which range suits an opening that stays open, and how do they differ?

SCREENGUARD is the 316 marine grade stainless mesh range, framed in T6 grade high tensile extruded aluminium and marketed as designed to protect your view. PERFGUARD is perforated aluminium, 2 mm thick and powder coated black, at about 40 percent view through, so you see out and the street sees much less in. Diamond Grille is the cost effective option in the range. Council's advice is simply to install insect screens so the breeze can enter without the bugs; which range does that comes down to view, privacy and budget.

Minimum housing standards mention vermin. Where does a screen sit in that?

Alongside it rather than inside it. The standards require a rental to be in good repair and free of vermin, and the Public Health Regulation 2018 puts a separate duty on the owner of a building to take reasonable steps to stop rats and mice getting in, giving covering a hole securely with wire or another covering as its example of a reasonable step. A screen frame fitted tight to the opening contributes to that in practice. It is a practical overlap rather than a compliance item.

Between tenancies, is a torn or holed screen worth fixing before the next inspection?

Usually, and the reason is not cosmetic. Queensland Government advice on stopping mosquitoes getting inside is to cover doors and windows with insect screens and to make sure they are in good condition with no visible damage. A torn flyscreen, a seized roller or a latch that no longer engages are repairs rather than replacements: we do lock cylinders and complete locks, sliding door wheels and tracks, closers, hinges, triple locks and patio bolts on site.

Council recommends large stacker sliders and bi-folds. Can an opening that size be screened and kept running?

Yes, and it is made to measure by definition, because a wide stacker or bi-fold opening is not a stock size. Cairns Regional Council's Cool Homes guide names large stacker sliding doors, bi-fold doors and casement windows among the choices that let more breeze through. Installation of security door and window screens has its own current standard, AS 5039.2:2024, and wide sliders are where wheels and tracks wear, which we replace on site.

What is the difference between stainless steel mesh and Diamond Grille?

Stainless steel mesh is finely woven, so it keeps a clear view out through it. Diamond Grille uses a visible diamond pattern and is the more cost effective of the two. Both are security products and both are made to measure for the opening. The choice comes down to how much view you want against what you want to spend, and we can show you both at the measure.

What is one way vision mesh?

DVA one way vision mesh lets you see out while reducing visibility into your house from outside. It is a privacy mesh rather than a security product on its own, so it is usually combined with a Diamond Grille or Colonial Casting security screen when you want privacy and security in the same door or window.

Can you fit a pet door to my security door?

Yes, though there is a trade-off worth knowing first. Industry guidance from the National Security Screen Association is that cutting a pet door into a security door voids its compliance, because the door is no longer the product that was tested. Plenty of people still choose it. Talk to us about where the pet door goes, and ask about pet mesh if you have animals.

What warranty comes with your security doors?

SCREENGUARD products carry a full 10 year manufacturer's warranty, and the warranty card is provided at the time of installation. Regular maintenance with SCREENGUARD Powawash is required to keep that warranty valid. PERFGUARD products carry a 7 year warranty from the date of installation. Conditions apply to both, and we will go through them with you.

Are your security doors made to measure?

Yes. Every door and screen is made to measure rather than bought off the shelf, and it is manufactured here in Cairns. SCREENGUARD aluminium frames use T6 grade high tensile extruded aluminium, manufactured and finished in Queensland in a range of colours. Get in touch to arrange a measure for your doors or windows.

Which Cairns suburbs do you service?

We service Cairns and the surrounding areas. That covers the northern beaches from Machans Beach up to Palm Cove, the northern suburbs around Smithfield, Redlynch and Freshwater, the Cairns city suburbs, and the southside through to Gordonvale. Check our service areas page for the full list of suburbs, or call us to confirm your street.

Nearby suburbs we cover

Related services

Related reading

Sources

Need security doors in Smithfield?

Tell us which openings you want to be able to leave open and we will measure them: the front door, the back slider, the bedroom windows, or the whole house. If the property is tenanted, say so when you enquire, because the Residential Tenancies Authority requires notice to the tenant before entry and both the measure and the fit need access. If a screen is already on the house and the lock has stopped working, the key jams or the rollers have gone, that is a repair rather than a replacement. The seasonal point is straightforward: February is the wettest month on the Cairns Aero record, and Queensland Health places most northern and central Queensland Ross River virus cases between February and May, so the sensible time to sort a screen out is before the wet rather than during it.

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