Rodent Proofing a Roofline Before Winter in McKinney, TX
Rodents enter a slab house along the roofline rather than at ground level, and a gap of about a quarter of an inch between…
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Proudly Serving Anna and Surrounding Communities
Customer had rodents getting in through the corners of the garage where the garage door jamb is cut at a 45 degree angle.
There was a large gap at the corner of the garage door that rodents were entering the garage through.
We installed our Garage Guard over the gap to prevent any further rodent entry into the garage
Rodents in the garage usually surprise people, because the garage looks fine. Nothing is broken, the brick is sound, the door shuts properly and the drive is clean.
None of that matters. The opening rodents used here is a standard construction detail rather than damage or neglect. The trim at the bottom of a garage door jamb gets cut back at roughly 45 degrees, which leaves a small triangular void where the jamb meets the slab.
Because the cut is deliberate, age does not protect a house from it. A door fitted last year has the same geometry as one fitted thirty years ago.
This is the part worth taking away. People check the corner, singular, usually the one nearest where they walk.
Every garage door has two bottom corners. A two-door garage therefore has four, and they do not fail together. One can sit tight against the slab while another two feet away has a clear gap, depending on how the concrete finished and how the jamb was set.
So finding one good corner tells you nothing about the rest. Check all of them.
Rodents in the garage rarely stay in the garage. A garage connects to the house through a door, shared wall cavities, and usually a roof void overhead, and plumbing and HVAC lines pass straight through the wall.
It also holds what they want: pet food, stored food, cardboard, insulation and quiet. Deal with the entry early and the job stays small. Leave it, and rodents establishing in a structure becomes a much longer piece of work.
We installed our Garage Guard over the gap at the corner. It is formed metal, fixed to the jamb, and colour-matched so it reads as part of the door rather than a repair.
Metal is the point. Rodents chew foam and they chew most plastics, so a soft filler at a corner buys a season at best. Steel does not give them anything to work on.
For the mechanics of why the door’s own rubber seal cannot close this gap, and what a sloped driveway does to it, see the same repair on a Denison garage.
Shut the door. Crouch at each bottom corner in turn, inside and out, and look for daylight. A gap of about half an inch is enough for a rat, and a quarter of an inch is enough for a mouse.
That takes under a minute and needs no tools. If you find daylight at any of them, we can close it.
Real jobs from our own records — what the inspection found, and why we treated it the way we did.
Rodents enter a slab house along the roofline rather than at ground level, and a gap of about a quarter of an inch between…
More on this: Rodent Control in McKinney