When we took out the sink in the pantry and converted it to the office-with-pantry-cupboards-in-it we found the holes for the cold cupboard. They had long since been covered up (I assume when someone bought a refrigerator.)
When we painted the outside of the house we had to decide what to do with those holes.
Dave the Father-in-Law skillfully patched the upper one with siding so that you really can’t tell it was there anymore.
I had an idea that the bottom one could be a catdoor. We have three cats and I’m a believer in free access. With raccoons and coyotes in the neighbourhood, I would love to keep the cats in at night, but the “lock” on the catdoors are not cat proof so they get out anyway. Fortunately, all three like to sleep in beds with humans at night.
Anyway, why ruin a perfectly good door if you already have a hole in your wall the right size?
I had some misgivings because holes in walls are not generally good for energy efficiency. Dave pointed out that, at the time, he was diligently helping us insulate and seal all the holes in the house and here I was adding new ones. However, it was too cute an idea NOT to do.
I made myself feel better by installing two cat doors–one on the inside wall and one on the outside wall–which, I hope, cuts down on the draft. You can’t do that when the catdoor is in a humandoor.
Um…I’m fooling myself, aren’t I? It’s still really just a hole in the wall sucking out heat. We’re going to have to address this little problem when we retrofit the house. How can we allow the cats in and out without compromising the air tightness of the house envelope?
Anyone? Buhler?
Anyway, here is what that catdoor looks like from the inside. In order to let the cats into the sunroom (formerly a walled-in porch), I put another cat door perpendicular to the exterior one.
