Wendy house cat flap leaks

Morning Newbie here,

I have been looking on this forum for a while before posting and found the site to be fantastic. My wife is the Rabbit lover I just get roped in when some practical stuff needs doing.

Anyhow thanks to the posts I have seen here we bought a Waltons wendy house and I have converted it for the bunnies, I have installed thermawrap (foil bubble wrap) and ply on the walls and laid vinyl flooring with battens round the edge. Everything took a bit of time climbing in and out of a space designed for kids but I also put a shelf and sleeping space underneath.

Winters not been the best time to do this project but the wife is bonding the rabbits and is hoping to use the new house, I purchased a Ferplast Swing 3 cat flap from B&M for £6 its meant for doors or glazing so thought it would be perfect.

I have however struggled to fit it snuggly but its on and the first day it rained all the water dripped of the felt roof and collected round the cat flap and there has been a fair amount of water that has got in. The door itself had plenty of raindrops over it. (would hate to have used it on my actual house)

I then created a small porch roof over the cat flap with felt on the top but still during bad rain here in Manchester waters getting in. Should I just throw the cat flap away and install a pop door or something similar the wife has suggested making the porch with side walls on it.

Any help is appreciated.

I've not had to use a cat flap, but I presume there is different qualities available. However my initial thoughts were is the cat flap facing the prevailing wind and rain?
The rain we have had here over the last few days has been unusually heavy, would the cat flap withstand "normal" rainfall?

Richard

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I would make something like a short, open tunnel over the cat flap - something like a piece of corrugated plastic arched round and staked in the ground with wire pegs (or coathanger wire), or a garden cloche tunnel. They can be removed when the weather improves.

What does the cat flap lead to? If it's a run. then put some roofing over that part of the run. It would also keep part of the outside area dryer.

Another thought - have you sealed round all the edges with something like silicone bathroom sealant? It would need to be dry before doing that, though.

We don't get direct rain down our tube as much (our house is opposite, about 8yds away, so protects it somewhat) but this is our solution:







Short piece of ducting, run through a plywood hole (the wood in this area of our secindhand playhouse was rotten anyway). Outside, it goes up (our run is stupid) so we put a piece of roofing felt over the top (you can just see it in the last photo, which has cat prevention sticks :roll to stop rain going down into it. Seems to work a trat, we've not had leaks in the 5yrs we've had this setup

So, Shimmer's suggestion of putting a roof over the into-run exit would be my first step (we used felt and bricks!) but tubes are also a possibility. I got all mine for free by asking nicely at building sites: the tram was being built in my area at the time so it was very convenient!

Silicone was the way I was thinking but its been too cold and wet to try that yet.

Love the tubes!!

The wendy should be fairly sheltered the back is butted upto the fence the side with the run is just next the gable end of the house.

The flap leads to a run but it is on flags at the moment we want to be able to remove the run in the summer for letting them out on the grass.

i think (as you suggest) a porch with side walls might be an easy fix - and silicone up any edges to the flap where it fixes to the wendyhouse too, to stop water tracking down the wall & seeping thru