Review on PlexiDor Performance Pet Doors Medium by Katie Jefferson

The price made us think long and hard about this door but with a large dog, a cat and a small dog it seemed like a good option. Large dog doors with traditional top doors seemed at least obnoxious or difficult for a cat or small dog to use. Some of the more attractive large dog doors have actually stated that they cannot be used by cats and small dogs. I think the problem is that the magnets needed to keep the door closed from the wind have to be so strong that a small dog or cat cannot open the door. Pros: In terms of ease of use, the pet door is excellent, all three animals can pass through it. Both dogs have it and the cat is working on it. The big problem with a cat is that they want to pull it in to open it, not push it out. I don't know if the animals care that the door panels are translucent, but it seems nice that they could see if there was an obstacle (like a cover) before trying to get through. The door was well packed. There was no damage in transit and I think the shipping company has to work hard before the door is damaged in transit. Cons: Build quality is very poor. The frames are beveled aluminum profiles. Our device has significant gaps in the corners of both the inner and outer frames. It really doesn't seem normal for a $500 product. Security is low (or expensive). The door opening is large enough for a relatively tall person to pass through. Inside is a metal plate that can cover the hole but is secured with Phillips screws. This means that if you want to secure the hole, you'll need a screwdriver and then, while holding the cover in place, secure it with four screws. This will almost certainly reduce the Guard's usefulness to all but the most dedicated. It would probably be easy to replace the Philips screws with thumbscrews, but why would you do that on a $500+ door? An accessory slot kit is also available - for around $100 - that allows you to attach the protective cover. It really should be a standard part of the product. You can build a slot yourself for about $15 using an aluminum channel and other hardware. Installation is harder than it should be. The tunnel in the wall of your house is made of aluminum sheet. The large capacity comes with an aluminum cutting blade that fits most jigsaws. Aluminum must be adapted to your installation. Getting it to sit and stay in the right place is a painstaking process - annoying if you do it yourself, expensive if you have a installer do it for you. All it took to make this part a dream was a piece of internal frame profile to catch the tunnel and hold it in place. I suspect the lack of this feature means PlexiDor uses a standard frame profile (reducing their cost, if not our price). Poor Quality Hardware: The door comes with fasteners and a drill (dubious usable size). I think in my whole life as a mechanic and builder I can still count the number of broken drill bits and I haven't broken that many screws. When installing the door, I broke the drill bit in the third hole in the tunnel and snapped two screws in (with a low-torque Milwaukee cordless screwdriver - I'm being very conservative until I know how the materials perform). Since the drill wasn't big enough to make a split hole, it became something of a pain as the sides of the tunnel were securely in place, but with a broken screw. Luckily I have UnScrew-Ums from T&L Tool that make it easy to remove a broken screw. For the rest of the screws I drilled holes and it worked. Don't know if I got a bad screw or if the extra cushioning of the wood rather than metal mount prevented further mishaps - either way I'd recommend passing the supplied drill bit and drilling holes for the tunnel mounts when you go in the forest Conclusion: The door works well. I wish it was taller so it would be tall enough for a large dog and low enough for a small one - like the Patio Pacific high aspect Endure doors. They fit in a herd and are large enough for a wider range of animals (high top for large dogs, low sill for smaller dogs and cats). The next Plexidor size is wider than the bolt well, making installation more challenging and further increasing the safety risk. between 200 and 300 dollars. At this level it would be a fair premium for an innovative product and a reasonable price - $500 and at this level of product quality I feel cheated. I don't know of any other door that so elegantly solves the problem of easy entry for a wide variety of animals, so I might recommend it - but not happily.