Woven Wire Mesh vs. Welded Wire Mesh: What's Right for You?

Woven and welded wire mesh may look similar to the untrained eye, but while they share some characteristics, the materials are distinctly different.

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How do you know which one is right for your next project? Find a rundown of each metal mesh product below, along with pointers for choosing a material that best suits your needs.

What is Woven Wire Mesh?

Woven wire mesh is a metal grid with intersecting vertical (warp) and horizontal (weft) wires that create square-shaped (or sometimes hexagonal) openings. Since the wires only intersect rather than being welded or otherwise fixed together, this type of mesh is typically flexible and easy to manipulate. Though woven mesh is often pliant, it can be more rigid when made with thicker wires.

How is woven mesh made?

The mesh is typically made using an industrial loom (sometimes called a weaving machine). Wires are wrapped around a warp beam, then placed into a heddle frame. This separates the warp wires so they can pass through another set of weft wires and create a grid pattern of a specified size.

What is it used for?

A wide range of applications call for woven wire mesh. This is especially true when it comes to home improvement and DIY projects. The material is a go-to for everything from gardening, composting, and craft papermaking to pest control, insect screens, and food drying. Artistic DIYers can even use this bendable mesh to create decorative sculptures.

In the industrial sector, it's often used for filtration, screen printing, and particle analysis.

What is Welded Wire Mesh?

Welded wire mesh is a stainless steel grid with intersections fused together with heat. This material is not malleable but rather rigid and notably strong, maintaining its structure under heavy pressure.

How is welded mesh made?

Welded wire mesh is made by first feeding opposing (warp and weft) wire spools through a special welding loom. The machine lays the horizontal wires over the vertical wires to create a grid, then it applies heat to the intersections to fuse the crossing wires together.

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What is it used for?

Unlike woven wire mesh, the welding process calls for thicker metal wires. This sturdy, inflexible material is ideal for fencing, chicken coops, and animal enclosures. It can also be used for soffit screens, foundation vents, chimney caps, gabions, trellises, and automotive grills.

In the engineering and construction sectors, stainless steel welded mesh is used for infill panels, landslide mitigation, and highway reinforcement.

Which Wire Mesh is Best, Woven or Welded?

Welded wire mesh is constructed with thicker wires and is available in larger opening sizes. This material can be used for structural purposes when projects call for durable metal grids.

Woven wire mesh, on the other hand, is available in much finer weaves (including many decorative styles), which makes it useful for cabinet inserts, insect screens, and more. 

If you need a large, rigid metal mesh panel with reliable strength, go with welded mesh. If you need something with much smaller openings or that can be manipulated into different shapes, woven mesh is a better choice.

Shop DIY & Industrial Metal Wire Mesh Products

TWP Inc. has been a trusted supplier of wire mesh products for over 50 years. We carry a huge selection of materials, including woven mesh, welded panels, and galvanized hardware cloth—all in stock and ready to ship.

If you're still not sure what type or size you need, we're here to assist. Contact us today!

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Probably best to check with them. That's not an industry standard call out as far as I'm aware. After all, they're still calling it welded wire fabric. The ASTM spec has specifically changed to Welded Wire Reinforcement:

ASTM A-18 said: Welded wire for concrete reinforcement has historically been described by various terms: welded wire fabric, WWF, fabric, and mesh. The wire reinforcement industry has adopted the term welded wire reinforcement (WWR) as being more representative of the applications of the products being manufactured. Therefore, the term welded wire fabric has been replaced with the term welded wire reinforcement in this specification and in related specifications.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but regarding WWF, besides the obvious complaints regarding its use (it gets pushed down to grade, and is useless), I specified D6 x D6 6 x 6 (deformed 6 gauge wires on a 6 inch square grid) on a project. All was fine, until my local guy said, "where do you get this stuff?"
I looked on the internet:
[ul]
[li]Company One, a rebar fabricator who listed WWF on their website; "we're a rebar fabricator, we don't sell that," from an employee who could care less and couldn't get me off the fast enough.[/li]
[li]Company Two, who listed WWF on their website, "sorry, we don't have it, but company Three and Four might" from a helpful guy.[/li]
[li]Company Three, "we have every kind of WWF you need, as long as it's 2.8 or 1.4 gage"[/li]
[li]Company Four, "is this domestic or foreign, you have the wrong number" and "we have it," but then when called again didn't.[/li]
[/ul]
Why is this stuff so hard to find? This has happened to me before. Someone is going to say, check availability, but I'm used to going to the ACI and just picking out standard sizes. The WRI needs to list standard available sizes, so I don't have to worry about tracking it down.