Pet Door FAQs — Australia

Yes — and it's the most common place Australians want one. The door is glazed into a round hole in the glass panel itself, not into the aluminium frame. Frames on Australian sliders are far too narrow to take a pet door, and cutting one weakens the structure.

Fit it into the fixed panel rather than the moving one wherever the layout allows. A pet door in a sliding panel changes position every time the door opens, which makes weather sealing awkward and confuses the animal.

No. Toughened glass is heat-treated during manufacture and holds enormous internal tension. Drill it, cut it, or nick the edge afterwards and the whole panel disintegrates instantly — it doesn't crack, it explodes into granules.

The panel has to be replaced with a new one that had the hole cut before it went through the toughening furnace.

Look for a small etched or sandblasted stamp in a bottom corner naming a standard or manufacturer. That stamp is mandatory on Australian safety glass.

No stamp usually means ordinary annealed float glass, which can be core-drilled in place — but have a glazier confirm it before anyone starts.

Anything in a door, or glazing below about 500 mm from the floor, is almost certainly toughened. Australian standards require it.

Yes, but the insulated glass unit has to be remade with the aperture built in. It can't be opened up and resealed on site — the spacer bar needs to run around the pet door opening as well as the perimeter, and that's fabrication work.

Our maxi dual-glaze models are the ones to specify for double glazing. The G-SDDC suits glass from 3 mm to 28 mm, which covers the great majority of Australian residential units.

This is the number to get right, because it has to be correct before the glass is toughened.

Send your glazier the model code, the cut-out diameter and the glass thickness range in writing before they order anything.

Expect $450 to $1,200 all up where the panel has to be replaced — which is most cases. If your glass turns out to be annealed and can be core-drilled in place, it drops to roughly $250 to $400.

Into a timber, uPVC or metal door — yes. It's a genuine DIY job with a jigsaw and the template supplied in the box. Most people manage it in under an hour.

Into glass — no. The panel almost always has to be replaced by a glazier. Fitting the door into a hole that's already been cut is easy though: the two halves seat either side of the glass and screw together.

Yes. The tunnel models handle panel and wall thicknesses from 11 mm to 52 mm — W-CDTW / W-CDTB for cats and W-SDDTW / W-SDDTB for small dogs. That covers most stud walls and single-brick situations.

Thicker walls need a fabricated tunnel extension. Send us your wall measurement and we'll spec it.

Most Australian back doors have one, and solving the glass without solving the screen leaves your pet facing a mesh wall.

A genuine security screen shouldn't be cut with a jigsaw — the mesh is tensioned into the frame, and cutting it loses that tension and the certification. Use a screen specialist who reinforces the aperture and re-terminates the mesh, or have a new screen made with the pet door built in.

Often the smartest answer is to bypass both and go through an adjacent wall or a side door instead.

Three measurements. The flap is smaller than most people expect, because it is fitted with its base at chest height — so it only has to clear the body, not the whole animal.

• Widest point — across the chest or hips, whichever is wider. The flap should be at least this plus 25 mm.
• Shoulder height — ground to the top of the shoulder blades, standing square.
• Chest height off the ground — floor to the lowest point of the chest. This one sets the installation height rather than the model.

Shoulder height minus chest height is the body depth. The flap should be at least that plus 25 mm tall. The Suits column below already satisfies both for a typical animal of that size — use the two checks when your pet sits near the top of a range, or is unusually broad for its height.

This matters more than most people expect, and getting it wrong is the single most common reason a correctly sized door gets ignored.

The bottom of the flap should sit level with, or just below, the bottom of your pet's chest. For cats, roughly 100–150 mm above floor level.

Too high and they have to step or jump up into it — hard on older dogs. Too low and they crouch, the flap catches their back, and rain runoff gets pushed inside.

Size for the adult dog, not the puppy in front of you. Look up the breed's typical adult shoulder height and buy for that. An oversized flap is a minor nuisance; replacing the door and the glass in a year is not.

Yes. Size the flap and set the installation height for the larger animal — the smaller one will manage a bigger flap without complaint. The reverse is not true.

Measure the edge of your door. Most Australian exterior timber doors are 35–40 mm; internal doors are usually 35 mm. The timber-fitting range installs cleanly into uPVC and metal panels as well.

Keep at least 75 mm of solid material between the cut-out and any edge of the door.

Fit a multi-magnetic door. A small magnet on your cat's collar releases a catch inside the door as they approach; a cat without the magnet pushes and nothing moves.

The model to ask for is the W-MCDW, which fits timber, steel and PVC panels from 11 mm to 52 mm.

What owners consistently report is that the intruder gives up faster than expected — a few audible thuds over the first week or two, then nothing.

Far less than people expect. The flap-to-body gap is machined to a near-zero tolerance and runs a full brush seal all the way around the flap. The four-way locking dial then closes the door off entirely overnight or in bad weather.

There is a magnet that returns the flap to its closed position after every use. What there isn't is a magnetic strip running around the flap edge — the kind that grips hard — and that is deliberate.

A heavier close would make the flap too hard for the animal to push through, and a door your pet refuses to use is worth nothing however well it seals. Closing force on the standard range is calibrated light enough for a cat. Draught control comes from the brush seal and the machined tolerance instead, which does the job without fighting the animal.

In normal conditions, yes. In a genuine wind-tunnel or exposed-gust situation, no flap door of any brand stays shut — that's physics rather than a product difference, and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling.

On an exposed coastal or hilltop site, fit an external wind deflector or hood to break the pressure before it reaches the flap, and use the "in only" lock setting during storms. Stronger magnets are not the fix.

Every flap is high-impact polycarbonate, UV stabilised. Australian UV is punishing on plastics — a north or west-facing flap in cheaper material goes milky, then brittle, then cracks along the hinge, often within two summers.

The door bodies are built with internal draft angles that drain water outward rather than letting it pool inside.

No. The base of the maxi range is deliberately left unsealed — it has drainage angles built in so water and condensation run straight back out. A little dust settling there is cosmetic.

A soft brush or a cotton bud clears it in place. No need to remove the capped screws or take the door apart.

Prop the flap fully open for the first day or two so they can see straight through, and reward every crossing. Then lower it in stages over about a week — halfway, then nearly closed, then released.

Never push a dog through or lift a cat through. One bad experience with the flap landing on their back can set you back a fortnight.

If a pet refuses a correctly sized door, check the installation height first. That's the cause far more often than the training.

Yes. Replacement flaps are sold separately for every model. The flap is the wear part, and being able to replace it rather than the whole unit is what makes a pet door a ten-year purchase rather than a three-year one.

Match the code on your door — for example the G-DDRF flap suits the glass-fitting dog doors.

Yes, Australia-wide, from Australian stock. Orders are dispatched within 1–2 business days.

Typically 2–10 business days from dispatch, depending on where you are. Metro addresses are usually at the shorter end; regional and remote Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania sit at the longer end.

A flat rate, shown at checkout before you pay. It doesn't change with order size, so adding a spare flap or a set of collar magnets to a door order costs nothing extra to ship.

Yes. All prices are in AUD and include GST.

The shorter period on moving parts reflects the fact that the flap is the wear item. It's also the part you can replace on its own, so a worn flap never means a new door.

Yes — send us your pet's shoulder height and widest measurement, plus the thickness of the glass or door panel it's going into, and we'll tell you which model fits. If your pet sits between two sizes we'll tell you which way to go.

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