Cat house construction details.
Here’s some details on the materials that I used to build my cat houses. There’s also some photos that I took while building them.
I have one Large cat house and one medium on my main deck, one medium house on my back deck and one in my barn. There are also two small houses in the barn along with a heated feeding station. I also have heated water dishes on the main deck and in the barn.
The Large house was built from scratch.
The frame is wood and the sides are masonite that is shiny white on the outside.
The main window and the two little windows above each door of the big house and the windows in all the other houses are made for 1/8in. plexiglas. Later I made all the windows double paned by adding a second layer of plexiglas with an 1/8in. air gap. That really helped to reduce the heat loss.
All the houses are insulated on the sides, back, top and bottom with RMax foil sided foam insulation. Either 1in or 1-1/2in.
All the houses use dual security floodlight fixtures for the dual heat lamps.
I use two 125 watt brooder heat lamps in the big house and two 65 watt floodlights in the other houses. During the summer I replace all the lights with 25 watt amber chandelier lights that work much better than bug lights..
I lined all the walls with puppy training pads which I can change when necessary and covered the floors with removable washable rugs.
The board that the lights are mounted on is removable in the medium and the small houses.
With the lift up roofs it’s easy to change the lights and keep the inside of the houses clean.
For my situation, I think having two entrances on each house is ideal, but then I have a lot of cats. Right now 18 cats call my place home and they all spend at least some time outside. If one is already in the cat house, another can get in with out having to get by the first one… they don’t always get along. Also they came bug out if some cat they don’t like comes in the other door. Of course the second door makes it just that much harder to keep the heat in and easier for the wind to blow through. I make sure there is a windbreak to block the wind from blowing straight in the doors and of course hang a towel or piece of rug over the opening.
The big cat house:
