The house we moved to had no screens, and it's spring! I wanted an easy and inexpensive way to let some outside air in and these are perfect for what I wanted. Right out of the package you can use them horizontally, but it did take me a bit of time to figure out how to change the configuration to be taller. I did it (thanks to the visual help of the online video they have), and I am extremely challenged when it comes to spatial reasoning. I like how easy these are to use right away, though. It's nice to have some fresh air minus the bugs :)