Midge mesh: does it work, and do you need it?

We fit midge mesh in the Phantom Executive, the motorised screen that closes patios, alfresco areas and balconies, so that's the setting for everything below. If you're after midge mesh for one window or a single back door, that's a different product and not one we supply, and I'd rather tell you now than three sections in. For a big opening, here's what decides whether the finer weave earns its place: which insect you're dealing with, the weave, the edges, the airflow it costs, and when you can skip it.

Know what's actually biting you

If you get bitten on the back deck at dusk and never see what did it, it's almost certainly a biting midge. WA Health puts them at 1 to 3 millimetres long, small enough that most people never spot one. The bite is out of all proportion to the insect.

Where they live tells you whether you need the mesh. The City of Gold Coast says midges breed in moist, sandy sediment between the high and low tide marks, and not in backyard containers, freshwater ponds or long grass. That's why canal estates, estuaries and mangrove fronts get them badly and a house two suburbs inland often doesn't. WA Health notes that many species only travel a few hundred metres from where they breed, though some go several kilometres.

They also keep regular hours. Midges are most active at dawn and dusk and on humid, calm days, and the council describes them as poor flyers that largely give up when there's a breeze. Mosquitoes are a different problem. They breed in still fresh water, and standard insect mesh already stops them.

Choose the weave by the gap, not the label

Mesh is described by its weave: how many strands run each way across the same width. More strands means smaller holes. Standard insect mesh is 18×14. Midge mesh is 18×18, so the holes close up in one direction, and that's enough to stop an insect a millimetre or two long. The City of Gold Coast is blunt about the alternative: standard insect screens will not reliably keep midges out.

You'll also see it sold as no-see-um mesh. That's the American name for the same thing, because no-see-ums is what they call biting midges. These are the three Phantom weaves that matter here, with Phantom's openness figures:

The 30×20 is denser again, but it's sold for sun control, and Phantom doesn't position it as a midge mesh. If shade is the bigger problem than the bugs, read our guide to openness factor, which works the same way outside as in.

Seal the edges, or the weave doesn't matter

This is the part nobody selling rolls of midge mesh mentions. A screen keeps insects out only as well as its worst gap, and on a big opening the gaps are at the sides and the floor. You can stretch the finest weave on the market across an alfresco, and if it hangs loose at one column, the midges will find that column.

On the Executive, a zip is bonded down each edge of the mesh and runs inside a captured side channel, so the sides are closed for the full drop. A brush seal on the bottom bar closes the line at the floor. When we measure, these are the things I check, because they decide whether the mesh you paid for does its job:

• Both sides captured, top to bottom. The channel has to run the full height on a surface it can be fixed straight and true to.
• The floor is level across the span. The brush seal has to meet the floor along the whole opening. A step, a hob or a fall in the tiles needs dealing with before the screen is made, not after.
• Nothing else is open. A screened alfresco with an unscreened side door or a gap above the beam is a screened alfresco in name only.

Run the screen fully down when the midges are out. Half-down is the position a screen likes least in wind, and a gap at the bottom is an invitation.

Count what the finer weave costs you

Every screen-maker ranking for this term says midge mesh has excellent airflow. It has good airflow. Going from about 58% open to about 48% takes away roughly a sixth of the open area, and on a still, humid February evening you'll feel that. The view through it is a little darker, too.

On a canal, that's a small price, and our guide to Phantom Executive screens makes the same call. The fix for the lost breeze is the same thing that helps with the midges: moving air. The City of Gold Coast suggests a fan or a breezy spot because midges are weak flyers and struggle to land and bite in moving air, and WA Health says ceiling fans may discourage them. A ceiling fan in a screened alfresco does both jobs.

Skip it where the breeze or the distance does the job

Midge mesh is the right answer on a lot of Gold Coast houses. It isn't the right answer on all of them, and specifying it everywhere means paying in airflow for a problem you don't have.

• Choose midge mesh if you're on a canal, river or estuary, back onto mangroves, or get bitten at dusk by something you can't see. Hope Island, Runaway Bay, Sanctuary Cove and Paradise Point are the obvious ones.
• Choose standard mesh if your problem is flies and mosquitoes, you're well away from tidal sand, and you'd rather keep every bit of breeze.
• Think twice about any fine mesh on an exposed balcony that catches a steady sea breeze. Midges largely give up in wind, so the mesh may be doing very little while the breeze you bought the apartment for comes through a sixth narrower.

If you're still unsure, the honest test is a calm evening in season. Sit out at dusk with the screen up. If nothing bites, you don't need the finer weave. Midge season and the outdoor season are the same months, which is why our retractable screens on the Gold Coast page suggests ordering before spring, not after the first bad night. The midges won't wait for the quote.

Frequently asked questions