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FRENCH DOOR / CUSTOM PET DOOR Glass doors and windows with one solid dual pane glass unit are becoming more and more common in new home construction, and the question of how to get a pet door into this kind of French door comes up frequently. Installing a pet door in this type of door is tricky, but it can be done. This is usually a worst case scenario, and installing a pet door in a glass door is usually more expensive than putting one through a wall. It is sometimes tough to tell whether your French door really has true separate panes of glass, or whether it has one piece of glass with a gridwork laid over it. The regular custom French door only works if your door has individual, separate panes of glass. The easiest way to tell if the panes are individual is to look for the manufacturers stamp, sometimes called a "bug", in each little window. Doors that were produced before the late 60's won't have these stamps, but if the door is that old it's a pretty safe bet that the panes are really separate. Most homes built since the late 60's or so will have tempered glass in the doors and windows. Tempered safety glass cannot be cut, if this attempted it just shatters into tiny little pieces. This is the whole idea behind tempering glass, tiny pieces are much less dangerous than large shards of glass. So when you see "glass fitting" pet doors on other websites, keep in mind that the manufacturers of those doors are in Europe, where tempered glass isn't required, or many buildings are old enough that they won't have tempered glass. The Pet Door Store doesn't sell the "glass fitting" pet doors at all, because we think it's a bit misleading to offer a glass fitting door when in all likelihood the customer won't be able to cut the tempered glass in their door or window to install it. There is still a way to install a pet door into a glass door though. The process which your local glass company (find them through the Yellow Pages or online) will follow is this: They will disassemble the existing door and remove the glass pane. They will then make another glass pane the same size, and cut a notch out of the bottom corner before the glass gets tempered. Then the glass goes through the tempering heat treatment, and now a pet door which fits on a thin surface can be mounted onto the glass. If your dual pane glass unit is 1/2" or thicker, you can choose the Endura door mount pet door with a single flap. This door requires some minor modification in which the frame is cut down with a jig saw. It is a very weather tight pet door and a big step up in weather proofing from the Pet Safe Classic, and very durable. If your glass unit is 3/4" thick or more you can also choose the Hale Pet Door with single or double flaps. It is also a very good door in terms of weather proofing, and comes in four different colors. The Hale needs to be custom ordered to fit a 3/4" surface, no modifications necessary. Give us a call to custom order the Hale. The pet door shown in the picture above is the Hale door. The pet door has a female edge, and the door has a female edge where the glass plugs into it on the side and bottom, so the two cannot be connected together directly. A piece called a bridge must be made to fit the two together, this is usually made from polycarbonate. Any glass shop will have polycarbonate, which also is known by its GE's brand name Lexan, and so they should be able to do this step for you. Needless to say this is quite a project and usually installing a wall mount pet door is a cheaper option. Another solution that is likely more cost effective is replacing the glass door with a wood or steel door and installing a regular door mount pet door. If you still want to find out about installing a pet door in glass, first thing to do is pick up the Yellow Pages and call glass companies in your area and see if you can find someone willing to take on the project. If the glass company has any questions, have them give us a call. |
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