Double glazed doors with cat flap?
Discussion
Chaps,
We are thinking of replacing our back doors, as soon as the weather improves! Currently, they are wooden doors with single-glazing glass in them. The doors are rotten and they don't fit the frames, and the glass is not very insulating, so ...
Double glazing here we come. I am a keen DIY'er, so am looking for units which I can fit myself. However, we have a very dense, but very lovely, fat cat. Therefore, the replacement doors will have to accomodate a cat-flap. Reading around, it seems that the best way of doing this is to buy a pair of doors which have a central horizontal bar, allowing you to remove the bottom glass unit on one side and replace it with a non-glass panel, which can then have a cat-flap installed. (Or, even better, with a cat-flap ready installed.)
I am a regular customer of screwfix, but their doors are all of the single-pane type (i.e. no horizontal bar.) Where do you suggest I should go to buy a suitable unit? (Dimensions of current unit are around 205x124cm, but I appreciate that I will need to do some cutting and/or packing to make a standard-size replacement fit.)
All help muchly appreciated ... either in the process of fitting double-gazing (is it practical for a DIY'er) and where to go to buy doors.
Oli.
We are thinking of replacing our back doors, as soon as the weather improves! Currently, they are wooden doors with single-glazing glass in them. The doors are rotten and they don't fit the frames, and the glass is not very insulating, so ...
Double glazing here we come. I am a keen DIY'er, so am looking for units which I can fit myself. However, we have a very dense, but very lovely, fat cat. Therefore, the replacement doors will have to accomodate a cat-flap. Reading around, it seems that the best way of doing this is to buy a pair of doors which have a central horizontal bar, allowing you to remove the bottom glass unit on one side and replace it with a non-glass panel, which can then have a cat-flap installed. (Or, even better, with a cat-flap ready installed.)
I am a regular customer of screwfix, but their doors are all of the single-pane type (i.e. no horizontal bar.) Where do you suggest I should go to buy a suitable unit? (Dimensions of current unit are around 205x124cm, but I appreciate that I will need to do some cutting and/or packing to make a standard-size replacement fit.)
All help muchly appreciated ... either in the process of fitting double-gazing (is it practical for a DIY'er) and where to go to buy doors.
Oli.
Been here! Our giant silver spotted tom-cat also gave us this dilema. Answer is simple. Go to a reputable glazier, who will make you a replacement window panel, into which a circle is cut. Said panel then installed in place of the original, thereby maintaining the benefits of double glazing, yet allowing Cat a door. Also, should you move, you can then replace the original pane.
I see you're London based. Which side, as I'm Guildford and I can recommend the chap who did ours. Catflap looks like it was always meant to be there. Cost about £120 for a panel roughly 40cm by 60cm.
I see you're London based. Which side, as I'm Guildford and I can recommend the chap who did ours. Catflap looks like it was always meant to be there. Cost about £120 for a panel roughly 40cm by 60cm.
Andy Mac said:
Wouldn't cat flap make the double glazing a bit of a mute point? I've had lots of cat flaps... Some expensive, some cheap, and they all get a bit drafty! If it had a decent seal the wee moggy would need biceps like arnies to open the fecker!
Ahh, but it has to be better than opening the whole door. Heat rises!
When you order your doors, just ask for them with a midrail and flat PVCu panels below the midrail, or maybe ask for just the slave door with a midrail and flat panel below, although that may look a bit odd. Flat panel needs to be standard polystyrene or styrofoam with only marginal reinforcement, if it is steel reinforced or multiply reinforced it will be difficult to cut for the cat flap.
I can supply, happy to quote if you give me some sizes, but I aint cheap, even if I discount the nuts off it, which I would of course for a PHer.
I can supply, happy to quote if you give me some sizes, but I aint cheap, even if I discount the nuts off it, which I would of course for a PHer.
xxplod said:
Been here! Our giant silver spotted tom-cat also gave us this dilema. Answer is simple. Go to a reputable glazier, who will make you a replacement window panel, into which a circle is cut.
A round catflap? Nevr seen one of those.
How about a miniature air curtain, like in dept stores?!
Unless you spend some serious money, new wooden doors are a pain in the ar5e. They're generally made from kiln dried timber that moves, swells, shrinks or warps at the slightest movement of the barometer. I'm sure that some of the ones I've had experience of would bud in spring given the opportunity
Chaps,
Lots of excellent responses - thanks. One-by-one ...
It would need to be a complete job - the doorframe is as rotten as the doors (and this is pretty rotten; I worry slightly every time I close them that they will - literally - fall apart.)
Thanks again for your input chaps.
Oli.
>> Edited by zcacogp on Sunday 29th January 21:40
Lots of excellent responses - thanks. One-by-one ...
xxplod said:OK, that's good. The replacement panel wouldn't be double-glazed, I guess, but that's OK. The problem is where to get a door suitable for this?
Go to a reputable glazier, who will make you a replacement window panel, into which a circle is cut. Said panel then installed in place of the original, thereby maintaining the benefits of double glazing, yet allowing Cat a door. Also, should you move, you can then replace the original pane.
xxplod said:East-end. So, wrong side. Thanks for the recommendation though - I may get back to you.
I see you're London based. Which side, as I'm Guildford and I can recommend the chap who did ours. Catflap looks like it was always meant to be there. Cost about £120 for a panel roughly 40cm by 60cm.
GKP said:GKP, who did your conservatory? This is interesting that they come ready-done ...
Our conservatory has double glazed, double doors. The one that is the secondary opener has a cat flap fitted. It wasn't particularly expensive to spec the door (from new) approx £30. So it's definately do-able.
Balmoral Green said:I take it you are "in the trade" then? If you could give me an idea of prices, I'd certainly not be turning them down. I'll PM you - thanks for posting. Out of interest, are you in the business of fitting them or making them? Or both?
I can supply, happy to quote if you give me some sizes, but I aint cheap, even if I discount the nuts off it, which I would of course for a PHer.
J1mmyD said:No, sorry. I'm far too attached to our ratbag. But thanks for the offer - I'll bear it in mind next time she leaves dirty wet pawprints on our clean white bedlinen!
I'll swap you cats
sparkythecat said:Helpful - thanks. 2 hours? Not bad. Any specialist tools needed? Did that include changing the side of the door aperture to make the frame fit the wall? Also, most usefully, who did you buy from?
IIRC The door and casing was about £275.00 and me took around 2 hours to fit. (It's not difficult)
Parrot of Doom said:Hello PoD. I recall your extremely helpful comments on my thread about insulating a Victorian house - and remain in your debt. Yes, it is a tempting idea, but in practice the wooden doors I am coming across are looking more pricey than UPVC ones. Yes, they would be more in keeping with the house, but the kitchen is on the back of the house, and has UPVC windows in as well so I am not so fussed here. Making one myself - now there's an idea.
How about - shock horror - wooden doors!!!!
It would need to be a complete job - the doorframe is as rotten as the doors (and this is pretty rotten; I worry slightly every time I close them that they will - literally - fall apart.)dern said:Yes, and this was my first idea. But actually finding a suitable bit of wall would be quite difficult, due to future plans for the kitchen. I've seen it done before, very effectively, and it's not a daft idea. Just impractical in our instance.
Put the flap through the wall. Sounds drastic but if the owner wants rid all they have to do brick up the holes rather than dick about getting a door to match the windows.
Thanks again for your input chaps.
Oli.
>> Edited by zcacogp on Sunday 29th January 21:40
Well if you have the time (probably better to wait until the summer), it might be a good idea to pull the original door frames out. You can examine their construction, buy the same profile of wood, and make some up yourself.
Try your local reclamation yard, you'd be amazed - I use a place in Manchester and Stretford called In-Situ - they have tons of old wood. I've walked out with big long lengths of old oak and mahogany before now, and I tell you the drill bit starts smoking when you're drilling wood like that.
Plus, plastic doors often expand and stick in the summer (although wooden ones can do the same in winter
)
Its just me really, I have 3 DG windows on the back of the house and I hate them, they're only there because there was so much to do when I bought the house that I had to prioritise. If I could, I'd pull them out and get a brickie to restore the original window shapes, then have wooden windows installed.
Also, when you say that the doors are rotten - how rotten? Its quite easy to replace just the bottom section of a door if the rest of it is perfectly fine. Frames are probably a different matter though, and I'd take advice on that.
Try your local reclamation yard, you'd be amazed - I use a place in Manchester and Stretford called In-Situ - they have tons of old wood. I've walked out with big long lengths of old oak and mahogany before now, and I tell you the drill bit starts smoking when you're drilling wood like that.
Plus, plastic doors often expand and stick in the summer (although wooden ones can do the same in winter
) Its just me really, I have 3 DG windows on the back of the house and I hate them, they're only there because there was so much to do when I bought the house that I had to prioritise. If I could, I'd pull them out and get a brickie to restore the original window shapes, then have wooden windows installed.
Also, when you say that the doors are rotten - how rotten? Its quite easy to replace just the bottom section of a door if the rest of it is perfectly fine. Frames are probably a different matter though, and I'd take advice on that.
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