Two different ideas about how to stop someone getting in
Woven stainless mesh is exactly what it sounds like. Fine stainless steel wire, woven into a tight grid, tensioned and held into an aluminium frame. Crimsafe’s version uses 0.9mm diameter 304 structural grade stainless wire in a plain weave, with openings a little under 2mm. Ours uses 316 marine grade stainless. The mesh stops an intruder because the wire is hard to cut and the weave distributes force across the whole panel.Perforated aluminium
takes the opposite approach. Instead of many thin wires, IntrudaGuard uses a single continuous sheet of specially tempered 5052 marine grade aluminium, 1.2mm thick, punched with a pattern of round holes in a 60 degree staggered pitch. There’s nothing to unpick, because it isn’t woven. It’s one piece of metal.
Both approaches are tested against the same Australian Standards. AS 5039 covers the physical attack tests, the ones where a screen gets hit with an impact bag, levered with a crowbar and attacked with a knife. AS 5041 covers the test methods. Any screen sold as a security screen in Australia has to pass these. A screen that hasn’t been tested to AS 5039 is a flyscreen, whatever the salesperson calls it.
Side by side
Crimsafe
IntrudaGuard
Our 316 woven mesh
Infill Woven mesh Perforated sheet Woven mesh Material0.9mm 304 structural stainless1.2mm tempered 5052 marine grade aluminium316 marine grade stainlessHow it’s held in Screw-Clamp, tamper-resistant screws and clampsBonded, no visible fixings Two-piece wedge and seatStandardsAS 5039 / AS 5041AS 5039.1 and 5039.3:2023, AS 5041AS 5039-2008ViewNear-full from any angle119 degree cone Near-full from any angleBushfireEmber screeningUp to BAL-29 with a compliant door or windowEmber screeningManufacturer warrantyVaries by product and dealer10 yearsBacked by our 7 year warranty
Strength: the argument Crimsafe makes, and it’s a fair one
Crimsafe’s core technical claim is about wire thickness and steel grade. They use 0.9mm 304 structural grade rather than the 0.8mm 316 marine grade that a lot of the market uses, and they point out that the thicker wire has roughly 26.5% more cross-section. Their argument is that 304 stretches and elongates under impact, absorbing energy, where 316 has to be tempered harder to pass the same tests and ends up more brittle as a result.
That’s a legitimate engineering position and it’s worth understanding rather than dismissing. If your single priority is maximum impact resistance and you’re not in a corrosive environment, it’s a real point in their favour.
The counter-argument is that 316 exists for a reason. The “marine grade” designation is about corrosion resistance in salt air, not strength. Which one matters more depends entirely on where you live, which is the recurring theme of this whole comparison.
IntrudaGuard sits outside this argument altogether. A 1.2mm continuous aluminium sheet fails differently from a woven mesh. There’s no individual strand to cut and no weave to unpick, but aluminium is a softer metal than steel. It passed the same attack tests. It just gets there another way.
Corrosion: the thing that actually decides it near the coast
This is where the differences stop being theoretical.
Stainless steel is not stain-proof. In salt air, 304 stainless will tea-stain, that orange-brown discolouration that appears on screens within a few kilometres of the beach. It’s usually cosmetic rather than structural, and it can be cleaned, but it comes back. 316 handles salt air considerably better, which is exactly why it’s called marine grade.
There’s a second issue specific to woven stainless. Steel mesh sits inside an aluminium frame, and two dissimilar metals in contact in a wet, salty environment can set up galvanic corrosion. Every manufacturer manages this, but the contact point exists.
IntrudaGuard doesn’t have that problem, because the sheet and the frame are both aluminium. Capral put the product through 3,000 hours of acetic acid salt spray testing and another 3,000 hours of neutral salt spray. If you’re in Wollongong, Bulli or anywhere along the Illawarra coast, that matters more than a percentage difference in impact absorption.
Inland, in Camden, Campbelltown or the Southern Highlands, it matters much less, and the strength argument carries more weight.
What you can actually see through
Woven mesh, whether 304 or 316, gives you near-full visibility from any angle. The wires are thin and black, so your eye reads through them.
Perforated aluminium behaves differently. IntrudaGuard is rated for a 119 degree angle of view, which is genuinely good for a perforated product, but it’s a cone. Look straight at it and you see through clearly. Look at it obliquely, from off to one side, and the holes close up visually and the panel goes more solid.
Whether that’s a drawback depends on what you want. Standing at your front door looking out, you won’t notice. Sitting in a lounge room with the screen off to your side, you will. Some people find the increased privacy from outside a feature rather than a compromise, particularly on street-facing windows.
How the infill is held in
This is the part most people never ask about, and it’s usually where cheap screens fail. It doesn’t matter how strong the mesh is if an intruder can lever it out of the frame.
Crimsafe’s answer is Screw-Clamp: tamper-resistant screws with an unusual drive head, clamping the mesh to the frame so it grips like a vice, then covered with a clip-in trim. It’s a mechanical fixing and it’s the thing they’ve built their reputation on.
IntrudaGuard’s answer is a bonding process. The perforated sheet is chemically bonded into the frame, with no screws, rivets or pins visible anywhere. Nothing to unscrew, and a cleaner look.
Our 316 mesh screens use a two-piece wedge and seat: the mesh is tensioned and wedged into a retention channel, and pulling on the mesh tightens the wedge rather than loosening it.
Three different solutions, all tested to the same anti-jemmy standard. Worth asking about whichever brand you’re quoting, because a screen with a good mesh and a poor retention system is the worst of both worlds.
So which one
If you’re near the coast, the corrosion argument should probably decide it, and that points at IntrudaGuard or at 316 rather than 304.
If you’re inland and you want maximum impact resistance above everything else, the case for heavy-gauge woven stainless is strong, and Crimsafe argue their version of it well.
If you want the cleanest look with no visible fixings, or you’re working to a tighter budget without dropping below Australian Standard compliance, IntrudaGuard does that at a lower price point with a 10 year manufacturer warranty behind it.
And if a screen isn’t tested to AS 5039, none of the rest of it matters.
We measure and quote for free, we make every screen to the opening rather than to a standard size, and we’ll tell you which of the two makes more sense for your place and why. If that turns out to be neither, we’ll say so.
We fit both technologies discussed here. We are not a Crimsafe dealer — this article explains how the two approaches differ rather than favouring one.