Backstory: I live in an area with a lot of strays/abandoned cats. For the last 6-7 years I’ve made friends with a bunch of them (roughly 25 so far.) I’ve been leaving food out, and have been bringing them in to get fixed as the little bit of money I get allows. (around 15 so far, been focusing on the females although a few boys have been done too.) Found homes for a number of them, but a few new ones keep showing up every year.
I live in Canada, our winters regularly drop below -30c (-22f) and much colder. In the spring it’s not uncommon to find a dead one in the neighborhood that had froze during the winter. I have an insulated box outside that has saved a few from freezing to death, but it’s not heated and isn’t very big. I have very little extra money but I want to do what I can for the little furballs. (I’ve been wanting to upgrade my 15yr old pc for years now, but this is more important to me.)
What I want to do is take an old broken apartment size chest freezer that I have and turn it into a cat house with a pet heating pad to keep it at least a bit warmer for any cat that needs it. I was going to cut a cat flap into the side for them and make a few floors or levels inside. I think it’ll help, but I’m a bit concerned about how the air quality will be in there. Will the cat flap let enough air through, or should I vent it as well? Is there anything else I should be doing as well? If anyone has any suggestions or improvements on my idea, I’d love to hear them.
A small louvered vent down low on the side of the chest should be all the venting you need, you can get a pair of them online for like, $4.
If it wasn’t a freezer, I wouldn’t be too worried about it, but refrigerators and freezers are super airtight.
Ya that’s why I was concerned. They are fantastically insulated but not made to let air through. Aside from the flap I do want to drill a few holes in the very bottom of the freezer for any moisture to be able to drain out but that doesn’t seem like it would be enough. But I also don’t want to overdo it and make it too drafty.
Yeah, the small vents down low should let out carbon monoxide and stuff (they’re heavier than air), and keep most of the warmth in, since it’ll rise anyway. If you want to isolate them further from any draft, you can put a chunk of wooden pallet on the floor and put the cushions on that, give them a floating floor kind of deal. That way, most cold air will be below them.
Ya I’ve got a few old pallets and was going to make a floor so the heating pad sits a few inches off the very bottom in case any moisture gets in, that way the pad stays out of the water, and the water can freely escape. And then maybe a second level and a little ramp to make more use of the room inside.
If you are able to, make some sort of foundation so that the bottom of the freezer isn’t in contact with the bare ground, at all, even if it’s just setting it atop some cinder blocks.
This will help with all of the aspects you’re going to be tackling:
It will give an air pocket to vastly reduce the loss of heat from the freezer going into the much colder ground. Even a freezer isn’t a perfect insulator, and the earth is a mighty large and cold slab.
It will give space for any sort of drainage system to function better, which you’re absolutely going to want to do something for sure, as you’ll have moisture condensation and bodily fluids to content with. Even though the cats will almost certainly immediately recognize the location as shelter instead of using it for “waste disposal”, some may take some learning and/or may be too sick to regulate themselves. (I would recommend putting some sort of sloped and channeled water proofed material inside the “flooring”, to guide any standing fluid towards your drainage).
It will also help mitigate somewhat the possibility of whatever critters might be in the brush beneath before full freeze, from having an easy path into the kitty hostel.
Sounds cozy!
Thanks, I’m hoping it will be. At this point some carpeting, a window and a nice coat of paint and they’ll have a nicer house than mine lol
Forgot to add, Eventually I’d like to install a window into the freezer so the tenants have a better view, but for the moment I just want to keep them alive and healthy.
