A patio enclosure — a roofed, covered patio structure — solves the overhead problem: sun and rain no longer fall directly on you. It doesn't solve the sides. Left open, the same enclosure still lets in wind, insects, low afternoon sun, and anyone walking by. Motorized screens are what actually closes those openings.
Most patio enclosures are built with open sides by design — that's what keeps them feeling like outdoor space rather than a boxed-in room. But "open" cuts both ways: the same openings that let air move through also let in mosquitoes at dusk, wind funneling across the yard, and glare off the low sun that a roof overhead does nothing to block.
Motorized screens mount into those open sides — between the posts or columns that already frame the structure — and roll down to close each opening on command. Nothing about the enclosure's roofline or footprint changes; the screens work with the structure that's already there, closing exactly the sides that need it while leaving others open for airflow and view.
Which sides actually need a screen depends on the specific structure. The side that catches the evening breeze and every bug with it is usually the first one homeowners screen. The side facing a neighbor's yard or a street often comes next, for privacy rather than bugs. A side that's already sheltered by the house or a tree line sometimes doesn't need one at all — screening every opening by default isn't always the right call.
Mesh grade matters per opening too. A fine insect mesh keeps the view nearly unobstructed for a side that just needs bug control. A solar or privacy-grade mesh does more work — blocking glare or sightlines — at the cost of a more visible weave when closed. Matching mesh to the actual problem on each side, rather than using one mesh everywhere, is a design decision worth making deliberately.
Concealment is the last piece that determines whether the screens look like part of the enclosure or like hardware added to it afterward. Breslow's motorized screens house the motor inside the structural beam and recess the tracks into the posts, so when a screen is retracted, there's nothing visible bolted to the outside of your patio enclosure — just the structure, doing more than it could on its own.
A patio enclosure's roof handles what falls from above. Motorized screens on the open sides handle everything that comes in sideways — bugs, wind, glare, and sightlines — turning a structure that's covered but still exposed into one that's actually closed in when you want it to be.