How to Install a Doggy Door

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Tim Gipson. I'm going to talk to you about how to install a doggie door. Now, the first thing you want to do is you want to find a location. Now, in this case, we've got an insulated garage door here, so we've chose to put this one in. As you can see, we've already got the hole drilled. But how we do this: When you purchase a dog door, it'll come with a paper template in there. And the size door that you're going to need, they come in a small, medium, large, and extra large will to be...depend on the weight and size of your dog. So if you have a medium size dog, you're going to need, probably, a medium to a large door, all the way up to an extra large door. So once we've located our spot, then we would tape the template onto this location, and that would allow you to draw the outline of the door. Then the next thing we would do is in the corners of the door, we are going to drill four holes and using at least a three-eighths to a half-inch drill bit. And since we're going through metal, we'd want to also make sure we're using a metal drill bit versus a wood drill bit. Now, once we have the holes drilled, then we can take a Sawzall would be your best tool to use with a metal cutting blade in this case. And we would cut the opening to the dimension. Now, the way the dog's doors are designed, is that you have this outside piece and this inside piece that sandwich together and that are held together with screws. So the insert is designed to go into this rough opening and then it just presses together. So all we would do...and you can stick this through the opening and you'd want to center it up and hold it in place. Lift up the other side. And if it's a little difficult doing it through the opening, one of the nice things about the garage door is that we can open the garage door and be able to get access to both sides of it. But essentially, if you're doing this in a...in a wall opening, you would have to install it just as I did. So once we get the two halves sandwiched together, then you can just take your drill and tighten the screws. Now, it's very important when we're tightening these screws, since we're just working with a plastic door, you want to make sure you don't over-tighten these because it'll break the plastic peg that it actually attaches into. So once we get the screws in, you can just check the flap. It should have a magnetic catch on the bottom of them, and that's all there is to it. So I'm Tim Gipson, and that's how to install a dog door."