Assessing the best location for your pet door
This blog post will take you step-by-step through the process of a recent pet door installation we did in Portland, Oregon for a medium sized dog.
We can help with the process of choosing a good location for your pet door installation but typically going through a non-glass door is simpler than going through a wall (because you never know what you’ll find inside of your wall, of course, we’ll check before we cut).
Once the decision has been made for the location of the pet door installation it is time to get to work.
Total Time Spent on Project: 4 hours (including proper clean-up)
Tools Used on Project: skill saw, sawzall, mult-master, vacuum, tarp, assorted handtools
Other Project Comments: In this case, the Portland are client supplied the trim kit and exterior wall plate and we left the work site completely cleaned so they were ready to enjoy their new pet door.
Pet Door Installation Step 1 – Cutting a small round hole on the interior
We begin by cutting a small round hole on the interior wall in order to check inside the wall. If there is electrical running through the wall we might want to choose another location and patching the small round hole is a simpler task than irresponsibly just beginning with large exterior cuts to your siding. During this pet door installation we found 4 obstacles 2 electrical outlet boxes and a foundation tie-down bolt and bracket. After cutting out the rectangular space from the interior and exterior it was time to deal with the obstacles.
Interior picture pet door cut-out showing the tie-down bolt and, bracket and electrical box.
Cut-out of exterior siding.
Assessing the Obstacles Step 2 – Moving on outlet box and cutting the tie-down bolt
We began by cutting the excess portion of tie-down bolt with a multi-master oscillating saw. Next, we changed a round exterior electrical box to a rectangular electrical box in order to make room for the exterior trim of the pet door.
Multi-master tool will cut the excess tie-down bolt for the installation of the pet door.
Exterior outlet boxed that needed to be swapped out for a rectangular outlet box to make way for the pet door installation.
Installing the Trim Kit Step 3 – From the trim to the wall kit
In between the interior and exterior trim kit we install a wall sleeve to protect your pet from the wall insulation. This will also minimize drafts for the home owners.In this case the client had already purchase the trim kit which we were able to work with but in some cases you may want/ask us to supply it. The customer supplied their won plate cover to match their home exterior (not pictured here).
Pet door installation finished interior wall with trim kit by Bragg Construction.
Pet door installation finished exterior wall by Bragg Construction