Rodents chewing electric wires

[rockchuk]

I am remodeling and have come across at least 10 places so far in my walls and ceilings where rodents had chewed wires (pics below)

The problem I saw was this, and I hope it's of interest to new home builders....the critters tried to enlarge the hole that was drilled through the lumber to string the wire.  The holes were drilled too big to start with, IMO, and this encouraged them to try and enlarge them further for access.

Should not the hole be drilled as small as possible, or if too big, fill it with some material?  

Also, why in heck did these not short out, or even burn the joint down??  <shudder>

[glenn kangiser]

I think you should sit your rodents down and have a little talk with them.  That looks a bit scary - I guess if they did short out, the fuses or circuit breakers must have done their job.  Just a thought but lime putty might be a good thing to fill the holes with.  Rodents don't like it.  It also helps stop bugs and preserves wood.  They use it in sawdust insulation in cordwood masonry walls.

[John Raabe]

Those are amazing photos!

 In the bottom one it looks like the green copper of the three bare wires have been exposed for some time. Were these circuits live and working normally? Hard to understand why there wasn't arcing and shorting.

This work must have been done by some very careful dry mouthed rodents. Maybe you should just present them with a master electrician certificate and send them to Florida for retirement.

[glenn kangiser]

John, your comments reminded me of the gal that runs the local hardware store.

She put up a new electric fence for her horses with steel posts and nice new yellow insulators.  We have a lot of humming birds around here.  Unfortunately the humming birds thought the insulators were flowers or something and somehow got their tiny little legs on the wire and apparently shorted out to the metal post.  Ever lick a 9 volt battery to see if it's good Apparently this is worse - blew their little legs off at the knees and left their feet on the wire.

For several weeks I tried to order little wheel chairs from her for the little critters-- I don't really think she thought I was funny. :-/

[rockchuk]

Lime Putty?  Thanks for that Glenn as I've never heard of it.  Lime is not my favorite flavor either, so I don't blame the rats.  
BTW, I actually did talk to these fellers right after we moved in.  I told them they should behave themselves and act like Christians, and then I launched them off this mortal coil straight away.  They are probably gnawing on the wiring in my eternal mansion as we speak.   That's ok though as I have no doubts it's a very small mansion....maybe a 16'x20' if I'm really lucky...but probably a 8'x12' with but a tin can to pee in.  


 author=glenn kangiser link=board=01;num=1117075757;start=0#1 date=05/26/05 at 00:36:28]I think you should sit your rodents down and have a little talk with them.  That looks a bit scary - I guess if they did short out, the fuses or circuit breakers must have done their job.  Just a thought but lime putty might be a good thing to fill the holes with.  Rodents don't like it.  It also helps stop bugs and preserves wood.  They use it in sawdust insulation in cordwood masonry walls.[/quote]

[rockchuk]

Those are amazing photos!

 In the bottom one it looks like the green copper of the three bare wires have been exposed for some time.

RC: Hi John....this was in the ceiling and there had been a heck of a nest made all through there by balling up the fiberglass insulation.  I think the copper was from the urine mostly?

Were these circuits live and working normally? Hard to understand why there wasn't arcing and shorting.

RC: Well, when I pulled down the drywall several mumified rats came down with it.  I dont know if the juice or the poison got them.  Oh man..remodeling STINKS!  I lust after these photos here of sweet cabins built with CLEAN wood.  I think building new is literally 5 to 10 times faster than remodeling.

This work must have been done by some very careful dry mouthed rodents. Maybe you should just present them with a master electrician certificate and send them to Florida for retirement

RC: LOL - I sent them a whole lot further off than Florida!  .[/quote]

[rockchuk]

BTW, yes, that wire was hot and in use and I too have absolutely no idea how it functioned.  I don;t get it.  Like I said, I've run across many of these situations here now, a couple even worse than the pics I showed.  It makes me shudder.  I mean, can;t FIRES start that way?
When I run new wire you can bet I will use the lime putty or equivalent that Glenn mentioned...though of course I hope to never have such a rodent problem again...

[glenn kangiser]

Fires could start that way if the breaker didn't kick out before the fire started.  

You can make the lime putty by soaking a bag of masons lime - Type S or N commonly available in a bucket of water.  Just put in excess water and the lime will stay in the bottom ready to use.  I always keep 5 bags ready to go in a 55 gallon drum.  I add it to earth plaster mixes.  A day or two is good -weeks - months or years is better.  

Thoreau made his own for plastering on Walden Pond.  He writes, " I had the previous winter made a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the Unio fluviatilis, which our river affords, for the sake of the experiment; so that I knew where my materials came from. I might have got good limestone within a mile or two and burned it myself, if I had cared to do so."

I started learning construction with my great uncle on a house in Rose Lodge, Oregon.  My uncle also said it would have been easier to build a new one -- but then a piece of history would have been gone.

[Amanda_931]

Sometimes lime is really hard to come by.

The only stuff available in this county is pickling lime--food grade and very expensive--you can use it to make your own hominy and tortillas from dried corn.

The Farm Bureau Co-op in the next county (not the one here!) carries it as hydrated lime--what you want, no matter how it's marketed.  Don't want the pelletized stuff that gets spread on the fields, don't want to slake your own.

All the big box hardware stores carry in Middle Tennessee or north-western Alabama in N or S grades is mortar mix.

It does kind of repel the carpenter bees.  Asphalt horse-fence paint does not.  Durn it.

Charmaine Taylor at www.dirtcheapbuilder.com is the queen of lime.   Lots of ideas and resources there, some on the papercrete pages.

[rockchuk]

Fires could start that way if the breaker didn't kick out before the fire started.  

You can make the lime putty by soaking a bag of masons lime - Type S or N commonly available in a bucket of water.

RC: Would hydrated lime work?  I really know virtually nothing about lime, except that we used to use hydrated lime in an outhouse we had on our mining claim when I was a boy

 Just put in excess water and the lime will stay in the bottom ready to use.  I always keep 5 bags ready to go in a 55 gallon drum.

RC: 5 bags in the water?  What would you use this much for?  Exterior of a building?

 I add it to earth plaster mixes.  A day or two is good -weeks - months or years is better.  

RC: I dont undertstand this....you mean it's better to soak it that long?

Thoreau made his own for plastering on Walden Pond.  He writes, " I had the previous winter made a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the Unio fluviatilis, which our river affords, for the sake of the experiment; so that I knew where my materials came from. I might have got good limestone within a mile or two and burned it myself, if I had cared to do so."

I started learning construction with my great uncle on a house in Rose Lodge, Oregon.  My uncle also said it would have been easier to build a new one -- but then a piece of history would have been gone.

RC: I can see remodeling on something that cool, but this old house is not cool, and a part of me would love to get rid of it and start fresh.  The property is really neat, but the problem is this place sits smack in the middle of it.   :-/

[rockchuk]

RC: That's an interesting site, Amanda...thank you.


Sometimes lime is really hard to come by.

The only stuff available in this county is pickling lime--food grade and very expensive--you can use it to make your own hominy and tortillas from dried corn.

The Farm Bureau Co-op in the next county (not the one here!) carries it as hydrated lime--what you want, no matter how it's marketed.  Don't want the pelletized stuff that gets spread on the fields, don't want to slake your own.

All the big box hardware stores carry in Middle Tennessee or north-western Alabama in N or S grades is mortar mix.

It does kind of repel the carpenter bees.  Asphalt horse-fence paint does not.  Durn it.

Charmaine Taylor at www.dirtcheapbuilder.com is the queen of lime.   Lots of ideas and resources there, some on the papercrete pages.

[rockchuk]

BTW....why not just use mortar to fill in oversize holes like that?  Acrylic admix added to the mortar should make it plenty flexible enough...yes?

[John Raabe]

Electricians commonly use a caulk or spray foam that is compatable with the cable sheathing to fill these drilled holes. It is required by some electrical codes to block fire spread.

http://www.betterfoam.com/Fire-Foam1.html

Looks like your critters might be the Norway Rat?

http://www.es.govt.nz/Departments/Biosecurity/PestAnimals/factsheets/10%20techniques%20for%20rat%20control.htm

[glenn kangiser]

The foam John mentioned would probably be the best as I don't have compatibility information.  Another search may reveal that but the foam would be easier anyway.

The neat thing about lime putty is that it is always ready to go -it can be kept in water forever.  As it starts drying out it picks up CO2 and turns back to limestone (if I remember right).  It was recently found in Italy in a hidden basement room still usable and estimated to have been soaking 2000 years appx.

Yes - this is the hydrated lime (pre-hydrated powder- doesn't produce heat when wet).  Same stuff that keeps the vermin from lunching in the bottom of your outhouse.

I use the lime for exterior earth plaster as you surmised.  Mixed with sand, clay, straw and a little cement it makes a plaster that looks like adobe and doesn't wash off.

[Jimmy C.]

My boss had squirrels eat the wiring under the hood of his car several times.
He heard from someone that mothballs placed under the hood would keep them from wanting to get back in.
 So far he has gone 2 years without replacing his wiring.
The down side is, when he parks his car next to mine the moth ball smell creeps into my air-conditioner intake.  

Smells like Grandma.

[JRR]

I had squirrels climb down the air intake plenum of a car,  chew a path through the plastic heater fan wheel, and set up house inside the car.

Squirrels smell worse than mothballs.

And mothballs don't scare the daylights out of you when you open the car.

(I think it was the squirrels that smelled .....   )

[Daddymem]

JRR, reminds me of a client I had when I worked in the service department at a car dealership.  A friend of mine came in complaining that his car stank.  I pulled it into the shop and man, did it ever stink....like death.  Our mechanic tore the car apart until he located the location of the foul stench: the heater core.  Thinking perhaps a leak occured and water went stagnant, he began to take the core out.  The fan had to come out as part of the operations and removal of that revealed the culprit!  The fan on his car looks exactly like one of those rodent exercise wheels and inside this "wheel" was the carcass of a mouse who evidently climbed in to nest.  We imagine the mouse was happy as can be when the owner came along, started his car up and turned the heater on.  That's when the last marathon of that mouse's life started...the poor fellow ran himself to death.  We got an odor removing bomb to clean out the stench in the car and replaced the death tainted "wheel" with a new one for a total cost of $300, all for a curious rodent.

[Shelley]

Y'all keep thinking.  Guess in my new place I'm confronting Kangaroo Rats....cute little things that have big eyes, long tails and like to chew.

[glenn kangiser]

Squirrels smell worse than mothballs.

And mothballs don't scare the daylights out of you when you open the car.

(I think it was the squirrels that smelled .....   )

I was reviewing your postings JRR to see where you were located.  Thought maybe you could come over and play sandbox with me sometime - looks like you are southeast.

What a fine bunch of wisdom you and the other engineers contribute to this website.  You guys are my heroes.

I must have missed the above posting before as it was very enlightening to me.  I never studied moth anatomy in high school so was unaware of the smell.

Could you please note the location - we can't find them.  I try to learn something new every day -but this one escapes me.



I guess it must have been a college subject???  :-/

[benevolance]

Worst scare of my life was a little fluffy bunny rabbit in a car...The transmission was out of it and it was a floor shift...It was winter and the snow was 4 feet deep...Smart little bunny figured out it would be warm and dry in the car....So I was shovelling the car out to get the door open to get a part off the car...As soon as I shovelled it all out I pull open the door and the scared to death rabbit leaps right at me...

Good thing I was young when it happened I would be dead from a heart attack if it happened now....It freaked the ever living Shi* out of me...

fluffy little bunny indeed

-Peter

[benevolance]

Oh and by the way...A squirrel is just a rat with a pretty bushy tail.

Rats that can climb trees... I loathe Squirrels.. Once they decide it is warm and dry inside your camp or Garage there is nothing short of their extermination that will stop them....Absolutely nothing!

We usually keep a few rat traps loaded with peanut butter outside the Shop all summer long... have to take steel wire and tie the trap to a post...The squirrels can drag the traps out of sight and you never find them....tie the traps down and you can always recover your trap.

No problem to trap a dozen every summer hanging around the garage...Usually if we keep them trapped out around the garage there are not too many problems with them trying to chew their way into the Garage in the winter.

Personally I think that everything has it's purpose in life and the 22 calibre rifle was meant for picking off Squirrels on top of the woodpile behind the house.

my motto is see em, shoot em, feed em to the cats

-Peter