Cat flap cut through weakens single skin brick wall?

[Safety First]

I agree, and I work with various models daily. It generally gives an answer designed to be pleasing, and you can get it to make alterations the outcome based on how you phrase the question (and you then interpret the response which introduces another slant..) but it is indeed a useful tool, like a cautious 10 year old that's read the entire internet

One thing is certain; an AI has never built a wall, nor knocked a hole in one. Dodgy foundations or not, if the wall is presently standing, putting a 200x200 hole in it will have no discernible effect, even if the hole were made right at the end of a leaf so there was only brickwork on one side of the hole it wouldn't fall down, unless the mortar is completely shagged and can be wriggled out with a pencil. Even if the foundations were made of sand, there would be no change, because a hole of that size just doesn't have a significant enough effect on the transmission of self-weight load down the wall. By the time you're at the bottom of the bricks on the row below the load triangle will have closed up again..

If you want to be ultra careful, you could look at hiring a large core drill and drilling through the wall (no hammer) - cat flaps can be fitted to round holes

Thanks for the thoroughly reassuring input. Sounds like you know your bricks!

Does remind me of the Fred Dibnah footage where his chimneys would seem to hold themselves up despite props being burned almost entirely away...

So far so good. I put a card template to the wall and drew around it.

Stitch-drilled for about 2 hours. Hoover nearly caught fire...

Shout out to Bosch Expert drill bits. Sailed through with a corded drill (not on hammer). Honey combing every which way was a P.I.T.A. eventually with a 4 inch screwdriver it snapped the block out and fell in at me.

A multi tool with diamond head made it all very neat indeed. .....
And it was upside down.

Had to drill more to take off corners. Gutted.

So far, mine and neighbours house are still standing. Cat is not at all amused.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Just don't sneeze!

 

[endecotp]

So you’ve done what the AI told you, not what the actual humans here said, right?

Do make a step on either side.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

The cat flap needs to be at the height of the cat's head when standing inside on the floor. They can't slither on their bellies and slide out like a snake, they stand on their legs and jump through it. They like to look through first, to check for any neighbouring enemy moggies out there.

Measure your cat's height when standing. Make the top of the door the tips of their ears.

You'll probably need a step or ramp on the outside, at about the same height as the inside floor.

This hopefully solves your worries about cutting too low down, but it was never a risk anyway.

 

[stevie888]

Itt doesn't matter where the thing is within reason: if the cat wants to use it he will, and vice versa.

Some years ago we rehomed a retired (lack of performance!!) Persian stud cat. Now Persians aren't the sharpest tools in the box at the best of times but he never did manage the door properly.

We had the flap tied up and he would then leap through the hole with gret style and panache but he could never master opening it himself.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

I had to build a step for our cat, as the cat flap is a microchip type and the sensor is located at the top of the flap we found that as the door was quite high she wasn't always raising her head quite high enough to trigger the sensor, the step definitely helped but sometimes she still doesn't trigger it, the dopey idiot.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

We had a much simpler one where the cat wears a small magnet that unlocks it.

I was forever pulling rusty nails and other assorted scrap metal off them after their travels.

 

[Safety First]

We had a much simpler one where the cat wears a small magnet that unlocks it.

I was forever pulling rusty nails and other assorted scrap metal off them after their travels.

 

[Safety First]

Bastard neighbourhood cat manages to defeat the microchip cat flap by using it's claw to pick at the door and pull it towards itself and get it's head under. It eats our cat's food, sprayed my speakers and sh@t on the landing.

The new cat flap has a lock on both sides linked to the chip in the cat.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

What's the point of having a chip activated lock to get out? Doesn't that mean if the other cat does get in, it won't be able to escape via the flap?

 

[JBR]

Bastard neighbourhood cat manages to defeat the microchip cat flap by using it's claw to pick at the door and pull it towards itself and get it's head under. It eats our cat's food, sprayed my speakers and sh@t on the landing.

The new cat flap has a lock on both sides linked to the chip in the cat.

Ours is like your old flap in that it can be pushed open from inside. However, on the outside the flap is inset by 2 or 3 inches and cats would have to have a good reach to pull it open. Nothing has ever managed to get in yet, anyway - apart from our own two cats.

 

[robinbanks]

The new cat flap has a lock on both sides linked to the chip in the cat.

Had you mentioned that initially I would have advocated putting the hole lower. Definitely put step on the outside so the cat has to bob down slightly to get under the outdoor reader

What's the point of having a chip activated lock to get out? Doesn't that mean if the other cat does get in, it won't be able to escape via the flap?

Perhaps they have another cat they don't want to let out at all; not a good idea with ragdolls for example

 

[Safety First]

Ours is like your old flap in that it can be pushed open from inside. However, on the outside the flap is inset by 2 or 3 inches and cats would have to have a good reach to pull it open. Nothing has ever managed to get in yet, anyway - apart from our own two cats.

I have videos of the bugger clawing away until it picks up the flap edge.
As well as videos of it making very ****ed off noises when I temporarily defeated it with an ingenious but short lived solution.
In the end this double lock version appeared second hand/ cheap.

I can't wait to see it defeated again.
My poor speakers

 

[Safety First]

What's the point of having a chip activated lock to get out? Doesn't that mean if the other cat does get in, it won't be able to escape via the flap?

That would be entertaining.
The idea is that the lock out works though.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Yeah, we had a one-way one, the big hungry local tom got straight in. Some cats know how to pull them up from the outside. In fact before the days of clever cat flaps I had a friend who kept theirs outward-only and deliberately taught theirs how to pull it up from outside and go in, the neighbour's cat couldn't work it out and never learnt from watching theirs.