I will istall a cat door on the door window that leads to the balcony. I have the number from my landlord but she told me to negotiate the price, but i don't have any idea of how much it would cost to install the door on a glass. I don't want to give a price that is too low but neither want to overpay for it. Any one now what would be a fair price? between CHF 200-300, would be good?

Thank you!

If your cat looks like the one in your profile picture, I think it may be a little more expensive - it's going to need a pretty big cat door!

More seriously, is it single glazed or double glazed?

In general, ask the guy to give you a quote and mention you will be getting a couple of other quotes too and will let him know... Should keep him honest!

LOL luckily is no THAT big, although it would not mind to have one around (the zoo here in basel has one as a matter of fact). I have to check with the glazing, although it seem to me to be double. Thank you

There are certain things you need to take into account. If the glass is double-glazed then this will cost more as there is gas indside. They might offer a new glass frame so that the old one can simply be replaced if/when you leave. So, installing will cost more than putting the old one back.

If you cut the original glass, you'll have to buy new glass if/when you leave, so your costs will be higher then.

I estimate something in the region of 500 CHF. This is variable depending on size and nature of glass. Labour costs alone are about 100 p/h, so you'll need to factor that in.

I'm glad you asked the question. We'd been considering adding something like a cat flap - no cat, but for things like aircon vents.

For people with cat flaps in their balcony windows, how do they fare in winter? Are they cold and draughty or will a decent one offer some insulation?

The one the i bought can be closed and seems to be pretty tight, so i don't think that in winter there will be too much cold coming in.

We recently had a cat door installed in our double-glazed bedroom window. The total cost, including labour, came to around 800.-, I think. I could check the actual cost if you like. They basically made a new sealed double-glazed unit with the hole for the cat door and replaced the existing unit with it. We still have the original unit in our cellar should we ever no longer need the cat door .

WOW 800.-?! this is definitely a lot. I expected to be expensive, but not that much.

We had a catdoor fittet 2 years ago.
Was quoted 300 chf - bill came for 800 something.....

So remember to get the qoute in writing.

(I did manage to get the quoted price in the end - but only with help of my landlord...)

Like I said, I can check, but this is the amount that came to mind. Bear in mind they had to make a brand new, custom-cut, gas-filled double-glazed window. This also included the cost of the cat door itself (it has a magnet-activated mechanism, so is a tad more pricey).

I simply built a new door, and saved the old one.

Cost me less than CHF 100 for the material.

Tom

We paid about 1000 CHF to get a cat door fitted into one of the patio doors. That includes taking the existing window out (which now sits in our cellar until we move out) and put a new one in with a hole for the cat door.

If you just put the door in and worry about replacing the window when you move out it should be no more than 300 CHFs.

Thanks all, this is really useful. As i have a final price i will post the update, and may be also a picture of the cat passing through it

we paid 700, fixed quote so no surprise prize increases later. also double glazed terrace door, he made a new one with the flap installed and we put the old one back when moving out. The company we used (he said he is specialized in cat flaps)
Daniel Maeder's Glas-Reparatur Service, Steimertenmatteweg 17a Lupsingen. Tel 061 791 1966

That's exactly what friends of mine did, though theirs only cost about 400, so I'm assuming it was a smaller pane of glass. They also have the sealed, gas-filled original pane unit stored in the attic for when they leave, so undoing it will cost significantly less.

This is a little update:
the company that my landlord advice me to use asked for CHF 1200.- for the patio-door and CHF 850.- for the window. I've been able to get down to CHF 1000.- for the big door, but i felt that it was still too much. So i called Daniel Maeder.
He gave me a quote of CHF 650 for the patio-door and CHF 550 for the window. So I settle for the Mr Maeder and the patio-door. He has been very nice and he really tried hard to speak with me simple and make sure that i was understanding everything. But most important he did really a good job (he even cleaned the window of the door before leaving!).

Thanks ullainga for the the tip! It saved me a lot of money! He is indeed specialized in cat door, he even installed a couple in my neighborhood. He does up to 80 per month.

You're welcome! I thought he did a really good job as well.