Monthly Archives: March 2020

DIY

Kitty Mansion

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This 2 story, 4 room house for outdoors cats features good insulation and many other amenities.

The Kitty Mansion is a fairly easy DIY project that can house up to 8 outdoors kitties, but only if they cuddle. Materials cost a total of $65. The only tools used were a hammer, battery powered sabre saw, measuring tape, and a marking pencil. This one is situated on a wooden deck that has railings and a metal roof. The kitties love the railings and walkway over to the roof of the penthouse. From the deck, they can go up a ramp to the room with a view of the patio where they play and are fed when it is not raining. Once inside, they have padded floors to lay upon, or they can take a right to go through a doorway into the other room on the second floor, go through a hole in the floor to reach ground level, where they can go through another doorway to reach the lobby and the ground floor entrance. Other amenities will be added, and the finished mansion will be painted to match the human residence.

I started by assembling Better Homes and Garden 4 cube organizer, Model # BH17-084-199-02 (Rustic Gray) $50. Easy to assemble. The top holds up to 100 lbs. The thinner wood of the inner cubes hold 30 lbs. Solid 2″ thick bottom, top, and sides for great insulation. For doorways, I cut 2 6″ x 6″ holes in the vertical particle board walls, and 1 hole in the right upstairs horizontal floor so they can go in the lobby entrance on the 1st floor, go through the mansion and out the 2nd floor entrance to the ramp. Assembled dimensions are 30.9″ x 15.36″ W x 30.9″ H.
Just one sheet of 7/16 in. x 48 in. x 8 ft. OSB TechShield Radiant Barrier, Model # 22493, was plenty for the front, rear, and 2 ramps. $15.05. For the entrance/exit doorways, giving the kitties 6″ x 6″ openings is large enough for them to enter but small enough to keep larger predatory animals such as coyotes and other canines out. When making the openings, be sure to compensate for the 2″ thick bottoms and sides.
Note in the top photo of the finished kitty mansion, where the ramp goes from the deck railing to the roof, I intentionally kept one of the large pieces a bit taller so the roof also serves as a nice table for picking up the kitties and examining them – for those I can pick up anyhow. So far, only two of the feral outdoors cats are socialized enough for me to pick them up and pet them.

DIY

Sump Pit

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I hired a large plumbing company which shall go un-named to put in a french drain, sump pit, and sump pump in my crawl space, and overpaid them triple of what I should have. Within just a couple of years the sump pump stopped working. I had them replace the pump at a cost of $900. I knew it was far more expensive than it should have been. I paid it because my heel bone was broken and my lower leg was in a cast.

A few months later the new sump pump stopped working. I didn’t go down to the crawl space to check it out thoroughly because my heel was still not healed. When the rainy season came in the spring and the sump pump was still not working, I called up the company. By then, it had been 14 months and the manufacturer warranty was only 12 months. It would cost another $900!

I said no, I will fix it myself.

Here’s what I saw when I inspected it:

Water was going into the sump pit but it wasn’t just water. The water was pushing mud and styrofoam pellets into the pit. In addition, the one-way valve was worn out and not working, possibly because of crap that had been pushed through it.

I bought a nice new sump pump with a float, new PVC drainage pipes, a new one-way valve, pipe solvents and glues, and an inexpensive see-through Rubbermaid storage tub, all for less than $200. “Why the Rubbermaid storage tub?” you might ask. My idea was to get water AND ONLY water into the sump pit.

This diagram shows how I used the tub as a water collector prior to it going into the sump pit.
Results: No dirt, no mud, no crap in the sump pit.