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- Verified Buyer
I took a chance in buying this large wall mounted doggie door. I researched all the options, electronic and basic. My criteria seemed rather unique 1) I live in an area where there's high winds, hot summers, and cold wintry winters, 2) There was a concern regarding chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, neighborhood cats, and groundhogs potentially getting in, and 3) I wanted to install one doggie door and be done for many years.After shopping around online I realized that the doggie door market has products that are very over-priced, and with shoddy electronic door options that reportedly consistently fail in cold temperatures and/or need circuit board replacement within one or two years of use. The collar batteries for the leading electronic option have to be purchased from the vendor for more than 4 times the price of what they ought to be charging as well. Once purchased, for a large doggie door and a few months of batteries I would have spent in the neighborhood of $700.00 and would have had a complicated install as well. For the next and absolute best in electronic door options, $2300.00! So I ruled out all the electronic door options. I didn't have that amount money to throw away on this project, so I kept looking.For large manual wall mounted doggie door options things were surprisingly limited as well. The cheap ones available in retail stores, well they all suck and have horrible reviews regarding not being weather proof, the flap or plastic door not having any durability (once you scale up to a large size, they just are super fragile), and it seems as though most users of them have to replace within a year. The top rated and popular-branded nicer weather-proof options all start at $550-$600.00 and yet many reviews indicated quality control issues and issues with flap failure within a couple years as well.Honestly, I started to get depressed, and I came very close to settling for either purchasing one of these high end manual doors or resigning to getting an electronic one for just $100.00 more expecting to have some sort of failure come winter (when the manual states I would have to disable to "safety" feature of the door taking a chance of the door coming down on my poor dog's head as she exists or enters!).Fortunately, I then came across this listing. Chinese-made and otherwise unbranded and relatively unreviewed large wall-mounted doggie door that seemed to upon investigation have really good engineering and it met all my criteria without any blatantly obvious-looking problems. I tried to investigate the company... ya there's nothing "out there." Pataplus is not a real brand. This company isn't likely to give customer support and it might disappear in a couple years, obviously it isn't made in the USA, but here's the kicker... it was only listed for $279! For this price, it was worth taking a risk in my opinion. The final result: I couldn't be happier!Install was simple, all the parts were included and indeed were engineered well. I am a contractor with carpentry skills and have installed windows before... I installed as if it was a window. The instructions were well written but I threw them out and just held up one half of the item to the wall, drew a cut line for the drywall and then went to town with an oscillating cutting tool and then a reciprocating saw. I framed in the space allowing for about 1/4in all the way around and then used window flashing tape all around it to protect my house from water infiltration. I threw out the rivets and used the screws provided to then attach the halves together (after applying exterior caulk like one does for windows). I purchased two tubes of caulk, one interior and one exterior grade. I caulked all the way around the edges and also along the inside bottom and side seams.Everything works wonderfully well. The magnets for the flaps seal them perfectly. Well nearly perfectly, I will say "perfectly enough." The flaps are sturdy and I don't see any future issues - they remind me of the material used in refrigerated warehouse rooms... likely to last. The flaps are secured with easily accessible screws and maybe someday I will have to replace them, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.My dog goes in and out no problem, but definitely, there's no way small critters are going to come in and cause problems as the flaps are too large and heavy especially with the magnets. I almost purchased a doggie door with "saloon style" doors but am so glad I did this instead because I know critters can get in the saloon style doggie doors per reviews I read. At night I put in the supplied metal plate which easily slides into place and secures the opening completely. I hang the plate above the door on a screw... super simple (You can see the plate in the photo... it doesn't need to be hung up above it, and I would say it probably doesn't even need to be used, but I like the safety of locking up my home at night).Zero complaints... absolutely wonderful. I wish I was paid for this review, but truly I am just an honest person who was so impressed with this product I wanted to share the good news... here's a large doggie door solution that will work for you and not break the bank. If this review was helpful though, please indicate as such.
