A PVC Kennel for Dummies

A cute... but not cheap! PVC dog pen

No matter what day of the week or time of the year, the Antisocial Network's world headquarters has at least one dog roaming the office. We loves our puppies... but if restraint ever becomes necessary, we have a nice folding wire playpen that we can set up either as a door gate or as a doggie corral (it was sold as a "playpen"). We understand that at one time or another, someone asked the internet "How to Build a PVC Dog Kennel," and – of course – someone at eHow.com was right there to "answer" the question. Ben Team and his plans are now at the Leaf Group niche site Cuteness.com.

In 2015 or so, Team updated the same "title" written by Brady Frazier back in 2012 for eHow.com. Frazier's version was a PVC frame wrapped in "wire fencing" (no more detail). Ben, on the other hand, decided to go whole hog and build an enclosure entirely of PVC. To that end, he cribbed a set of plans from a website for owners of designer dogs. We suggest you go to the original, since Ben's suffer from a lot of ambiguity.
One thing we found ambiguous is that, despite Ben having pronounced that.

"It is important to keep dogs -- especially young puppies -- supervised or safely contained so they do not injure themselves or destroy your home...

...we calculate that his plans will create an enclosure 6½ feet by 4½ feet and around 18 inches high. We submit that, while 18 inches would keep most puppies safely contained, an adult dog would just step over it. Unless, of course, it's a teacup Chihuahua.

The plans that Ben reworded do a fairly good job of explaining the layout: for each layer, the corners are Ls connected to PVC crosses with short lengths of pipe; there's a cross at each end of the longer lengths of PVC that make the "rails". The layers are connected by short vertical lengths of pipe, with a T fitting on the top and a short "foot" with a cap on the bottom. Simple-ish.

Unless you try to puzzle out Ben's instructions, which include steps like,

"Connect the long sides to the short sides by attaching a 90-degree elbow to the 1 7/8-inch segment extending from the end of each short pipe. Insert the 1 7/8-inch segment on the long pipes into the open end of the 90-degree elbows."

Maybe if Ben had ever worked with PVC he wouldn't be using "attach" instead of "insert"... among other problems, Ben hosed the count of the short, 1⁷⁄₈ -inch connectors. He said you need 48, but that's only enough for the rails; you need another 48 for the verticals and the "feet." Oops.
When you come right down to it, though, you can't blame Team for the most glaring error. His reference said that playpens like these are "pricey," so Ben said that, "Building your own kennel will allow you to save money..." We beg to differ. Based on current prices at our local hardware, The plan our Dumbass of the Day (and his source) concocted, if made of ¾-inch PVC, would cost $156.88 plus tax.

Save money? Our folding wire kennel, 30 inches high (with a door) cost less than $80 and didn't take any time to build. We'll stick with that one, thanks

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