pet porte catflap

MrsE_2

winsoar wrote: »

That price is more expensive when you add the postage.

Its £97.98 each one.

That 98p more than your price for each one if you buy two.

Assuming you can't find someone else to chip in & buy one I don't think its too bad to pay an extra 98p:cool:

JoeyEmma

We have an evil tom cat that keeps breaking into our house and spraying. We've both just come home from a long day at work and the entire house, upstairs and down has been sprayed and bloomin' stinks.

I am intrigued about this cat flap and just have a quick question.

Stray cats sometimes come to our back door. When they do, our cats go and stand by the cat flap to have a good nosey at what is going on. Will this mean that the cat flap opens and the strays can get in? How close does our cat have to be to the flap before it opens up?

We like to leave the cats to be able to come and go during the day.

Also, does anybody have any valid up to date codes to use to get a PetPorte with?

MrsE_2

JoeyEmma wrote: »

We have an evil tom cat that keeps breaking into our house and spraying. We've both just come home from a long day at work and the entire house, upstairs and down has been sprayed and bloomin' stinks.

I am intrigued about this cat flap and just have a quick question.

Stray cats sometimes come to our back door. When they do, our cats go and stand by the cat flap to have a good nosey at what is going on. Will this mean that the cat flap opens and the strays can get in? How close does our cat have to be to the flap before it opens up?

We like to leave the cats to be able to come and go during the day.

Also, does anybody have any valid up to date codes to use to get a PetPorte with?

It opens from inside with just force.

But from the outside they have to pass under a canopy & have the chip scanned.

So for a cat to enter from outside, he has to either have a chip OR spring on your cat while coming out, force your cat back in AND grab the flap before it closes & get in while holding it outwards (the way it releases for a cat to leave the house).

NOW thats just my opinion from what I understand by my research.

ajb69

MrsE wrote: »

It opens from inside with just force.

But from the outside they have to pass under a canopy & have the chip scanned.

So for a cat to enter from outside, he has to either have a chip OR spring on your cat while coming out, force your cat back in AND grab the flap before it closes & get in while holding it outwards (the way it releases for a cat to leave the house).

NOW thats just my opinion from what I understand by my research.

I've got a PetPorte and this is basically correct. What happens is that it has two little "paddles" at the base of the door - one controlling if the flap can open outwards, and the other controlling if it can open inwards (hope that makes sense).

In "standard" mode, the outward paddle is set to open, and the inward paddle is shut. So it can just be pushed open to get out, but no-one can get in - in effect, it's like an ordinary 4-way cat flap set to out-only.

When one of your cats comes along from the outside, it scans the chip, checks if it's on its little list and unlocks the inward paddle for a short period - so the cat-flap goes to both ways. This lets the cat in: you can choose how long it should stay open for, so you can set it for a long time to start off and then shorten it once they are used to it.

The scanner is on the outside, in a little weather-proof "balcony", so it won't be set off by anyone sitting inside. It's quite sensitive, but again you can adjust the range if you need to. You can also set it to "vet-mode" and/or "night-mode" which means that either a) no one can get out at all, ever or b)no one can get out after dusk.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Drew

Penguino_2

I've just got one of these after a lot of reading of various reviews. The unit itself I can not fault, it's well made from solid plastics of a decent thickness so they don't distort.

Everything slots together simply and no need to trim off flash (mould marks) or make other adjustments as you often have to with plastic items.

Operation is excellent, our new rescue cat was letting other cats in through our old cat flap and just watching them eat his food, yesterday after a few days of security behind the Pet Porte he felt brave enough to sit the other side of it and slap the other cat in the face with the flap!

If I had the door/window fitting version I would 100% recommend it, but unfortunately there are no suitable doors/windows in our flat, so I had to have the wall fitting one and that caused me no end of problems.

The trouble is that the wall mounted version is exactly the same as the door version, except the cable between the exterior 'porch' chip reader and the interior flap is longer to allow for the greater distance between the two, what is actually needed to make it practical is a lot more changes.

The first problem is the hole. The template for cutting is the same as that for doors, but if you are using the tunnel pieces to connect the two parts (and you almost certainly will be) these are larger than the hole dimensions from the template, so you need to carefully measure the larger size and use that.

The second issue is cutting that hole. I am a reasonably competent DIYer with the correct tools, but I cannot cut a hole through two layers of brick accurate to 1mm. If the hole is even 1mm too narrow the tunnel sections will not fit, so my hole ended up a couple of mm too large.

This is where the problem really starts. The fixing holes for the flap and porch sections are both about 5mm from the edge of the holes in those items. By the time you have a slightly larger hole they are right next to the hole.

To attach them to brickwork you need to drill a hole for a fixing plug for a screw to fit into. Generally you shouldn't try and do this within 1cm of an edge, as bricks or blocks tend to split or crack, in this case the drill is so close that it would immediately break through into the hole.

This meant that I had to design a completely new way of fixing the cat flap to the wall around the hole.:mad: In the end I had to buy some thick exterior grade plywood, cut a suitable hole in it to fix the cat flap with a wide surround to then mount this board to the wall inside and out.

This added over 20mm to the depth of the tunnel, which means I've had to order another tunnel section to join the two halves, and the problems didn't end there.

The door versions are joined using threaded rods and nuts running through narrow holes. That's fine with the rod/nuts as they are designed to fit them, but in a wall mount you need to use a normal screw.

The interior side needs a screw 1 1/4" long just to get through the moulding, to actually bite into the board I needed a 1 1/2" screw, but screws this long are typically a 'size 8' head which is too large to fit the holes in the cat flap.

I have a number of boxes of different sizes and types of screw and eventually found a size 6 screw long enough, but these are far from standard and most people would not have one, and none is supplied so that's another item to find and buy.

The outside is much shallower, so I found a suitable screw easily, but the problem here is that you have to fit the porch to the exterior frame before you mount it, as the fixing for the porch are inside the frame. You then can't get a screwdriver directly onto the fixing screw as the porch is in the way! I eventually managed with a very long thin screwdriver using feel to guide the way as the screw and hole were totally invisible under the porch.

In the end it took over7 hours to fit, and that was starting with an existing hole in the wall that just needed widening. The basic concept is excellent, the unit is well manufactured and our cat loves the large door and the security it gives him.

If I was fitting to a door or window I would whole-heartedly recommend it, but if you want to fit it to a wall I would be very wary about getting one, unless you are prepared to start designing your own fitting methods (or borrow my eventual solution!).

If you think you can fit this to a wall and just have the neat plastic mouldings showing as per the pretty pictures on the box and web then think again, I defy anyone to fit one of these into a wall without some form of extra spacer or other modification to fix it.

Feebs

Hi there

I'm thinking of getting one of these but worry that they look a little small. One of our cats is quite a bruiser and I wonder if he would get through it ? Could you give me an idea of the size and whether you think a large cat would get through it. My cat was brain damaged in a car accident and I'd hate to put him through any more stress i.e. getting stuck in a catflap.

thanks in advance:beer:

Penguino wrote: »

I've just got one of these after a lot of reading of various reviews. The unit itself I can not fault, it's well made from solid plastics of a decent thickness so they don't distort.

Everything slots together simply and no need to trim off flash (mould marks) or make other adjustments as you often have to with plastic items.

Operation is excellent, our new rescue cat was letting other cats in through our old cat flap and just watching them eat his food, yesterday after a few days of security behind the Pet Porte he felt brave enough to sit the other side of it and slap the other cat in the face with the flap!

If I had the door/window fitting version I would 100% recommend it, but unfortunately there are no suitable doors/windows in our flat, so I had to have the wall fitting one and that caused me no end of problems.

The trouble is that the wall mounted version is exactly the same as the door version, except the cable between the exterior 'porch' chip reader and the interior flap is longer to allow for the greater distance between the two, what is actually needed to make it practical is a lot more changes.

The first problem is the hole. The template for cutting is the same as that for doors, but if you are using the tunnel pieces to connect the two parts (and you almost certainly will be) these are larger than the hole dimensions from the template, so you need to carefully measure the larger size and use that.

The second issue is cutting that hole. I am a reasonably competent DIYer with the correct tools, but I cannot cut a hole through two layers of brick accurate to 1mm. If the hole is even 1mm too narrow the tunnel sections will not fit, so my hole ended up a couple of mm too large.

This is where the problem really starts. The fixing holes for the flap and porch sections are both about 5mm from the edge of the holes in those items. By the time you have a slightly larger hole they are right next to the hole.

To attach them to brickwork you need to drill a hole for a fixing plug for a screw to fit into. Generally you shouldn't try and do this within 1cm of an edge, as bricks or blocks tend to split or crack, in this case the drill is so close that it would immediately break through into the hole.

This meant that I had to design a completely new way of fixing the cat flap to the wall around the hole.:mad: In the end I had to buy some thick exterior grade plywood, cut a suitable hole in it to fix the cat flap with a wide surround to then mount this board to the wall inside and out.

This added over 20mm to the depth of the tunnel, which means I've had to order another tunnel section to join the two halves, and the problems didn't end there.

The door versions are joined using threaded rods and nuts running through narrow holes. That's fine with the rod/nuts as they are designed to fit them, but in a wall mount you need to use a normal screw.

The interior side needs a screw 1 1/4" long just to get through the moulding, to actually bite into the board I needed a 1 1/2" screw, but screws this long are typically a 'size 8' head which is too large to fit the holes in the cat flap.

I have a number of boxes of different sizes and types of screw and eventually found a size 6 screw long enough, but these are far from standard and most people would not have one, and none is supplied so that's another item to find and buy.

The outside is much shallower, so I found a suitable screw easily, but the problem here is that you have to fit the porch to the exterior frame before you mount it, as the fixing for the porch are inside the frame. You then can't get a screwdriver directly onto the fixing screw as the porch is in the way! I eventually managed with a very long thin screwdriver using feel to guide the way as the screw and hole were totally invisible under the porch.

In the end it took over7 hours to fit, and that was starting with an existing hole in the wall that just needed widening. The basic concept is excellent, the unit is well manufactured and our cat loves the large door and the security it gives him.

If I was fitting to a door or window I would whole-heartedly recommend it, but if you want to fit it to a wall I would be very wary about getting one, unless you are prepared to start designing your own fitting methods (or borrow my eventual solution!).

If you think you can fit this to a wall and just have the neat plastic mouldings showing as per the pretty pictures on the box and web then think again, I defy anyone to fit one of these into a wall without some form of extra spacer or other modification to fix it.

shelly

Feebs wrote: »

Hi there

I'm thinking of getting one of these but worry that they look a little small. One of our cats is quite a bruiser and I wonder if he would get through it ? Could you give me an idea of the size and whether you think a large cat would get through it. My cat was brain damaged in a car accident and I'd hate to put him through any more stress i.e. getting stuck in a catflap.

thanks in advance:beer:

Hi.

We have a PetPorte flap so I just measured the actual opening for you.

Roughly in cm it is 18.5cm high and 17.2cm wide
Roughly in inches its 7.2 in high and 6.8 in wide.

To me Lily is quite a big cat and she gets through it with ease. She didn't really like it at first though because it kind of clunks when the chip umlocks the flap for them to enter and being a big girls blouse she's quite skittish about things like that.
She got used to it after a few days though and is now fine with it.

When we bought ours the following was the cheapest deal we could find at £99.99 with free delivery..... http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=44&pf_id=8916
If you do get one be careful to choose the right one for you. They come in white or brown with either wall or door fixings.

Whether you can find it cheaper elsewhere I don't know.

HTH

ajb69

Seeing these posts has reminded me - I have been emailed and told a new version of the PetPorte has just been launched, so it may be a good moment to get cheap versions of the old version (or to watch out for resellers dumping stock, conversely).

The description is here - http://www.petporte.com/smartflap/ - but I don't know much more about it than that. I have ordered one, so will update the thread after I have got it.

The main reason for my wanting to upgrade is:

- battery backup for power failures (I live in an area with frequent power blips)
- they have moved the locking "flaps" to the side - great, as the current ones often get blocked with mud and don't work!
- selective exit. Apparently (and I have my doubts until I see it working) it can now also keep certain cats in the house, but let others out. Given the number of my cats visiting the vets right now, this would be most useful, as the current functionality only checks cats on the outside, not the inside.

Hope this may be of interest -

d

shelly

Thanks for the link ajb.

Just looking at the blurb it says the battery back up is 'optional'. Also the selective exit accessories are to be bought seperately.
How much do the two of them cost on top of the flap itself?

Feebs

Thanks Shelly, that's really helpful.:T I noticed they had two types of cat flap on the website and when I queried the size they told me that the original catflap would easily accomodate a 5kg cat. My cat is quite a bit bigger than that so I was a bit confused.

Have you got the original cat flap or the one with 'knobs on' ???

cheers

Feebs

shelly wrote: »

Hi.

We have a PetPorte flap so I just measured the actual opening for you.

Roughly in cm it is 18.5cm high and 17.2cm wide
Roughly in inches its 7.2 in high and 6.8 in wide.

To me Lily is quite a big cat and she gets through it with ease. She didn't really like it at first though because it kind of clunks when the chip umlocks the flap for them to enter and being a big girls blouse she's quite skittish about things like that.
She got used to it after a few days though and is now fine with it.

When we bought ours the following was the cheapest deal we could find at £99.99 with free delivery..... http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=44&pf_id=8916
If you do get one be careful to choose the right one for you. They come in white or brown with either wall or door fixings.

Whether you can find it cheaper elsewhere I don't know.

HTH