Home Sealing for Pest Control:
Step-by-Step Guide to Seal Your Home
Pests take advantage of even the tiniest crack, gap or hole to gain access to your indoor space. That’s why home sealing for pest control is essential to prevent the pests from coming inside your home.
Every weather change brings about adverse effects of certain pests. For instance, cockroaches, rats, spiders, and houseflies tend to seek refuge in homes during winter to escape the harsh weather outside.
The availability of food sources in your house also attracts insects and other pests. Pests take advantage of even the tiniest crack, gap or hole to gain access to your indoor space.
A cockroach can force its way into your building through a hole with a size smaller than a credit card’s width. Although it looks large, mice can enter your house through a dime-size hole.
Therefore, the first thing that you should do to address a household pest problem is to ensure that all cracks, gaps and holes in the exterior walls of your building are properly sealed, irrespective of how big or small they are.
“A cockroach can force its way into your building through a hole with a size smaller than a credit card’s width. Although it looks large, mice can enter your house through a dime-size hole.”
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What Do You Need for Home Sealing?
It is paramount to ensure that you have all the tools and items needed for sealing the voids before starting to look for possible pest entrances.
#1. Tools
You’ll need a pair of gloves, screwdriver, tape, mirror, mesh screening, broomstick, hammer, nails, gloves, caulking gun, caulk, pen, pad, screwdriver, and a quick dry putty can, among other items.
#2. Start from the top
Inspect your building from the roof moving down. Check for lost or ripped off vent screens on the roof and replace them. Spread over fresh caul in the areas surrounding exhaust vents and seal up all voids surrounding your chimney or the air conditioner mounted on your roof.
Besides, find out if there are missing shingles, rot wood or termite tube signs on your roof. Set up new screening over attic louvers to bar the entrance of bats and other pests.
#3. Examining the foundation and the walls
Upon ensuring that the roof is properly sealed, the next area to direct your attention is the foundation of your building. Look for holes in your crawl space or basement and if you find them, install fine mesh screening over the voids to prevent pests from having access to your home.
All walls of your house should be inspected from the foundation to seam where your home’s roof meets the walls. The inspection aims to find out if there are gaps, cracks, and holes.
Use weatherproof silicon caulking to seal these voids and in case of a larger job, use a patch. Areas beneath roof overhangs are likely to have loose siding, termite tube signs as well as wood rots.
Therefore, it is vital for you to examine these areas keenly. Also, check if there are broken window screens and if present, replace them with new ones. Repair all missing mortars and fill up all cracks in your wall, regardless of its type.
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“All walls of your house should be inspected from the foundation to seam where your home’s roof meets the walls.”
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#4. Seal your doors and windows
Your doors (including garage doors) and windows are likely to be surrounded by some gaps. Inspect the surrounding areas and if the gaps are present, seal them with silicon caulking (for windows) and weather stripping to seal doors and the surrounding areas. A self-closing hinge will be of much help to ensure that sliding doors close completely.
Seek Professional Help
The identification of all cracks, gaps, and holes in other openings that pests can use to enter your home is not an easy task. In most cases, a trained eye will be the ultimate solution. You can hire a pest control professional who is conversant with home pest proofing.
This will be a great relief to you as you’ll only need to sit, relax and watch the work done. That is how home sealing for pest control is done. Hopefully, with the knowledge, you’ll be able to seal all the spaces that pests could be using to get into your indoor space.***