We get called out to so many pest issues in customer and business premises that a lot of the time, the pest has managed to find a way into the building via a few entrance points. Some can obviously come through your open window if you leave the doors open unattended or via air bricks!
How to Pest Enter the Home Via Air Bricks
Air bricks are an important feature of the home, they allow air to circulate under the floorboards, around the cavity walls, and circulate to the loft and back again. It helps remove dampness from under the floorboards or trapped air in the loft and cavity walls. The only issue is, that these 6mm-10mm holes are entrance points for many pests such as spiders, woodlice, furniture beetles, woodworms, wasps, bees, ants, and mice!
We have found that wasps and bees love to use these air bricks to access the cavity wall and build their nests. This can result in damp patches appearing inside the home as the nests prevent the air from circulating and the only way to remove the bees nest is to remove the bricks or building fabric they are building behind. This can be a costly exercise where we then carry out the removal of the nest and proofing of the air bricks afterward. It only needs to happen once in your ownership of the property and you will regret not having the building proofed in the first place.
Getting Air Brick Proofing
We charge a small fee to fit a variety of mesh or plates in front of the air bricks. This still allows air to enter and circulate, but being at 0.6mm reduces 95% of the pests getting into your home via these points. So, unless you feel confident in buying these covers and fitting them yourself, then why not give us a call and we can quote on how much it will be to proof them all? All we need is how many, ideally photos or let us know if they are a single brick size or double brick size. These cover last year’s and will prevent pests from entering your home during the time they are on. If you don’t think they can enter by these air bricks, then just check our posts on our social media pages where we remove these air bricks to get to nests and carry out rodent control and proofing.
Can Rats Get Through Air Bricks?
The type of air brick you have can impact the type of pests that may be able to enter your home. Older air bricks have holes large enough for mice to squeeze through, as well as many insects. Newer plastic air bricks tend to be easy for rats to gnaw through and gain entry, so unproofed air bricks can lead to larger pest problems than you may think.