I hope someone can give me some advice.
Before I have always had a cat flap in a door but now I have a new house and
the back door is a large double glazed door which would just cost me to much
to have a flap put in. A builder friend has offered to put one in the wall
for me. Has anyone any experience of doing this? I have a couple
questions:
1. As it's a cavity wall do cats have a problem going through a tunnel?
2. The actual door seems to be on the inside leaving the tunnel exposed to
the elements (or have I got that wrong?). What's stopping it filling with
rain and allowing water to seep into the cavity wall?
Knocking holes in walls is quite a drastic thing to do so I don't really
want to do it unless it really is the right thing............I'm not sure
what else I will do though if it isn't!!
Thanks in advance
Angela
> I hope someone can give me some advice.
Best advice is DO NOT MULTIPOST. Had I known you multiposted this message,
I would have ignored it in alt.pets.cats and you would have missed out on
my detailed description of one way to do it, with pictures. Other
people with expertise in the field and a dislike of spending time replying
to a message only to find that since it was multiposted there is a
real risk of having wasted the time and effort duplicating what someone
has already posted elsewhere are likely to ignore it as well.

Signature
T.E.D. (tdavis@mst.edu) MST (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).
Cat Guy - 27 Apr 2008 02:07 GMT
> > I hope someone can give me some advice.
>
> Best advice is DO NOT MULTIPOST.
I totally agree. I also discovered it was a multi-post after the
fact.
> Had I known you multiposted this message, I would have ignored
> it in alt.pets.cats and ...
An alternative strategy is to cross-post the reply to all the
multi-posted groups. Takes a little bit of work though.
Ted Davis - 27 Apr 2008 16:35 GMT
>
>> > I hope someone can give me some advice.
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> An alternative strategy is to cross-post the reply to all the multi-posted
> groups. Takes a little bit of work though.
It's not always possible: people who multipost (and crosspost) all too
often use non-standard groups not available to many users.

Signature
T.E.D. (tdavis@mst.edu) MST (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).
>I hope someone can give me some advice.
>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> Angela
We have the same type of sliding glass doors in our bedroom, leading to the
outside deck along the back of the house. We choose to put in a cat door
that's mounted in a 8 inch wide by 7 foot high aluminum strip they sell in
Petsmart for around $175. Although it works fine, it is expensive, and it
does compromise the security of the home since it prevents the sliding glass
doors from closing all the way, and it is kind of flimsy. I do believe the
hole through the wall is a more elegant solution. You can always put in two
identical cat doors....One co-planer with the inside wall, and one co-planer
with the outside.....This would give you better protection against air loss,
so your heating bill wouldn't be significantly higher. We didn't do this
mainly because it is a lot of trouble, and we live in a low crime area. I
put a large eye-screw in the doorjamb, so we can chain the sliding glass
door across the 8 inch gap, and make it relatively secure.......In most
sliding glass doors, you can lay a dowel along the base, preventing the door
from being opened any further than any given length......IOW, you can cut
the dowel so the door can't be opened from the outside any further than the
width of the cat door aluminum section. We couldn't do this, because our
doors were installed backwards by the builder such that the thief on the
outside could place the dowel, preventing our escape! I would try the
aluminum device if you are in a low crime area, and the hole in the wall if
you are in a high crime area.
Robert Bodling - 04 May 2008 14:04 GMT
> We have the same type of sliding glass doors in our bedroom, leading to
> the outside deck along the back of the house. We choose to put in a cat
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> device if you are in a low crime area, and the hole in the wall if you are
> in a high crime area.
Low crime area? What's that, only one out of 100 houses get broke in or 1
out of 100 people get robbed or killed?
William Graham - 04 May 2008 20:44 GMT
>> We have the same type of sliding glass doors in our bedroom, leading to
>> the outside deck along the back of the house. We choose to put in a cat
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> Low crime area? What's that, only one out of 100 houses get broke in or 1
> out of 100 people get robbed or killed?
Ask your local police to define a "Low crime area". - I'm sure they can give
you a better description than can I. Or, you can compare the crime
statistics of a gated community to those of a ghetto area.