The In’s and Out’s of Pet Doors. . .
One of the most “immediately necessary” home improvements you will have to make is a new pet door. If you have pet’s you know how tiring it can be to constantly let the pets in and out and in and out. Installing a pet door or “doggie door” as they are sometimes called, while absolutely necessary, isn’t always an easy task. Until recently, there really hasn’t been an effective and logical solution to the whole pet door dilemma, and that can leave you and your pet more than frustrated.
Historically, there has only been two options when it came to pet doors, and unfortunately because they were the only options, there were a lot of them sold, in fact if you have a pet you probably have one of these pet doors and are as fed up with it as everyone else. They do deserve a quick discussion here, because I guess in some situations, they do have their place.
The first option is the all famous, big box store special. Essentially this is a doggie door the same height of the existing sliding glass door. This fastens to the wall jamb, and then, your sliding glass door locks up against this panel instead of the wall. There are several problems with this set up. First, the door will always leak now because the panels can’t “interlock” at the center, where the seal used to be created. So you will have a steady flow of air and dirt through that new gap in the door.
Also, you now have about 12 to 18 inches less space than you did before, to get in and out of your sliding glass door. This is a nightmare if you actually use your sliding glass door, which most people do. And forget about entertaining, because there isn’t enough room for one person to get through, let alone a party of people going in and out especially carrying food plates and drinks. I forgot to mention um, what if you don’t have a sliding glass door, now what?
The other option was one of those “through the wall” pet doors that they sell at big box home improvement stores as well. Yes those are great, nothing like cutting a big hole in the wall of your new house to improve the resell value huh? Nothing looks more out of place than an unsightly yellow plastic doggy door in the middle of the wall in your dining room. These are famous for leaking air and dirt as well, after all they weren’t exactly engineered to exacting standards.
So where does that leave us? You can change out your French doors, if you have them, to a “half-glass” door panel, where the top half of the door is glass and the bottom is wood. You can then install a doggie door into your French Door, this is the most logical solution, however, this can be extremely expensive. This always hurts when you have brand new French Doors and you essentially have to throw them out, so that your pet can go in and out as he pleases.
Some crafty glass experts have been known to replace the glass in your sliding glass door with a new piece of glass that is notched in the bottom corner. In this cutout, they install a pet door and now you have a pet door in the actual glass portion of your sliding glass door, but you still can’t open it all the way because the pet door hits the fixed panel, when you open the door too far. Besides, no pet door was really made for in “in the glass” configuration, so this always causes problems in the long run.
A recent development in pet convenience is the pet door insert made by Pet Door Design. This system is a pet door, designed specifically for sliding glass doors. In this scenario an entirely new glass unit is ordered, with a pet door installed, coming built from the factory. This product solves all of the other issues and problems you have with the old alternatives. One, its beautiful and looks like the door was built specifically for the pet door, without unsightly bulges and gaps. Two, the entire glass unit is replaced you so can open your door completely with a slim line pet door made for this application so you wont have to worry of banging the pet door on the fixed panel and your door seals as tight as it ever did. They are also reasonably priced. You can see a video of the pet door system on their website www.petdoordesign.com
So there you have it, it only took a few hundred years of pet door nightmares to come up with an easy solution to allow your pets to come and go as they please. Remember this article next time your dog starts scratching at the door, right when you sit on the couch. Keep an eye out for my next article where I will be discussing the new pet door that comes with a security collar.
For Pet Doors Las Vegas, give us a call at 702-608-8408
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