Mice and plastic pipes.

[Jacob]

Mice nibble underfloor pipes and cause fine leaks. They obviously stop when they get squirted enough but the fine spray carries on and a wet patch appears eventually. Happened twice now
How to deter them other than by replacing with copper?
Just fixing one now and I'll put some traps down

 

[Old.bodger]

Wrap in Ali foil or Ali tape helps and block any likely access holes with stainless steel wire wool. I also leave a good sprinkling of bait blocks under the floors.

 

[Jacob]

Wrap in Ali foil or Ali tape helps and block any likely access holes with stainless steel wire wool. I also leave a good sprinkling of bait blocks under the floors.

Can't block access holes its a suspended floor open full size of the building. I'll try the ali tape. Not poison - did that years ago and had foul rotting stench for weeks!

 

[clogs]

all our heating pipe are in solid concrete floors.....mmmmm.....
we just use glue traps now.....
check em daily, swift smack on the head cures the problem....
best ever, got 3 of the blighters on 1 sticky pad in a day, all at once....

oh and we have three cats......hahaha.....

 

[Rorschach]

Use a fine mesh covering over any access holes, you can maintain the ventilation while making it mouse proof.

 

[RichardG]

Is it speedfit? I'm sure their guidance notes stated that it should be installed in conduit if there's any chance of coming into contact with rodents. Could cover with pipe insulation as a sacrificial mouse snack?

 

[deema]

Steel cable ducting over the top. The sort you pop into walls before plastering for example depending on the size of pipes

 

[Jacob]

This sort of stuff? 7 10 13 15 18 21 25 28mm Split Loom Wire Flexible Tubing Conduit Hose Cover Car | eBay
Hoping to be able to work it in over the pipe and under the joists without too much extra work.

 

[Krome10]

Interesting timing for this thread as we're about to have some plumbing work done and I'm going to insist copper is used rather than plastic. There's some existing plastic. Not too much though, so thinking to have that replaced at the same time.

There is a feed of plastic coming off the top of the HW cylinder and down the back of the cylinder. When it reached the floor, it's joined to copper. Do you think plastic pipe in such a position is at risk, or just plastic pipe at floor level? Here's a couple of pics:

Still deciding what best to do with electricity cables in the loft. They seem to like them more....

Cheers

 

[HappyHacker]

Squirels love electricity cables. I replaced all the cables in the gap between the ceiling (very high) and the tiles on a large scout hut once, many had all the PVC removed, no dead bodies (squirrels) though. Fortunately they were having the roof replaced so I could get access. Rats are also partial to cables.

 

[John Brown]

Some years ago we had a problem at our tennis club with the 12v halogen downlights. Muggins went into the attic to investigate(shows how long ago it was - I probably couldn't squeeze in there now). There was a quite large traditional transformer ( Es and Is) up there, with multiple secondaries for individual rows of lamps, and cyclindrical glass fuses mounted on the top of the assembly, one for each secondary. Squirrels had pulled out most of the fuses - no idea why. I replaced the fuses and taped over them, and as far as I know, it's been fine since.

 

[Spectric]

mice will chew all plastic pipes if they get in your house as well as pvc wiring and can be a real pain. Seen a lot of wiring damaged and a few indoor showers caused by mice.

 

[Stuart Moffat]

I have 10mm copper solar panel pipes come down from the roof through to a storage tank. It had quite expensive insulation round them. squirrels ate nearly all of it,

 

[Old.bodger]

A bit off topic, but, for vermin issues with cable, use ‘flexishield’ but do make sure it is correctly ‘glanded’ and terminated.

 

[kmcleod]

we've had the problem, and after fixing the problem wrapped the pipes in a fine copper mesh sleeve, bought from the evil empire, (Amazon), which seems to be suitably detering the little buggers...

 

[mikej460]

When we bought our house it had an annex that we didn't need at the time so used it for storage. One day in the middle of a very cold winter I went out to discover water pouring out of a door. After switching off the water and electric I discovered that water and central heating pipes had been routed through the annex attic and mice had eaten most of the pipe insulation causing a pipe burst. I sealed off the water supply but the bill for the damage came to £1.7k.

 

[Jacob]

When we bought our house it had an annex that we didn't need at the time so used it for storage. One day in the middle of a very cold winter I went out to discover water pouring out of a door. After switching off the water and electric I discovered that water and central heating pipes had been routed through the annex attic and mice had eaten most of the pipe insulation causing a pipe burst. I sealed off the water supply but the bill for the damage came to £1.7k.

I suppose you could blame the unprotected insulation rather than the pipe work. Mice can only gnaw a tiny hole in plastic before the water jet would overpower them.
We have got into the habit of turning water off if we go away for more than a day or so - the damage could be astronomical

 

[mikej460]

I suppose you could blame the unprotected insulation rather than the pipe work. Mice can only gnaw a tiny hole in plastic before the water jet would overpower them.
We have got into the habit of turning water off if we go away for more than a day or so - the damage could be astronomical

Absolutely, I had no idea there was pipework in the attic otherwise I'd have isolated it all.

 

[doctor Bob]

Squirrels have eaten my lead garden gate post cappings, I think they sharpen their teeth on them. Got the air rifle out but think I only shot his left testicle off as he scarpered pretty quickly but was making funny noises.

 

[Sandyn]

After reading all the stuff about mice chewing plastic water pipes, I'm getting paranoid. An old house, it's impossible to seal up every hole where mice could get in. I was horrified today to see a load of mice cr@p in a corner of my workshop. When I mentioned it to my wife, she started laughing. "Oh....that will be the Niger seeds I spilled"