Drain Rats In Walsall
26th June 2012
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If you have rats in your home, walls or loft, read on and you will find the solution.

We are often asked if we see many rats when we survey sewers and the answer is only very occasionally, you are more likely to see them on the larger diameter sewers because of their vast numbers, on domestic systems they tend to hear the manhole cover as it is lifted or the camera moving towards them and they make their escape.

However they do take little excursions from the main sewers and into the smaller diameter systems that run straight up to your property, think of the sewers as motorways and your private system as an A road and they have a nice little warm, safe and ready made network in which to move around and before you know it they are literally a whisker (pun intended) away from your cavity wall, sub-floor or loft space.

How Do Rats Get Into Your Home, Cavity Wall, Sub-Floor or Loft Space?

Rats will find their way out of the system given the opportunity and this usually occurs due to a poorly designed system, a system that has been altered or where a collapse, broken or displaced pipe has occurred. As mentioned earlier your drainage system gives the rat direct access up to and in a lot of cases beneath your property, so if they do find their way out they then tend to have access to cavity walls and sub-floors which is in effect a little ratty heaven that opens up a whole new world of feeding opportunities..

Fortunately modern drain lining methods mean that we can cap off redundant junctions without excavation in many cases, the problem then is that if you seal the connection off and the rats are on the house side they are trapped. Its best to have the works done in conjunction with pest control putting poison or traps down. The worst case scenario is that the rats are forced to find another way out and in doing so create another way in, one that can not so easily be traced.

Drain Camera Inspection

When you have your system surveyed it is vital that every branch line and junction be surveyed and accounted for, how easy this is will be dependant on the lay out of the system and the number of access chamber available. If there are not sufficient access points it may be necessary to excavate on the outlet of each gully pot or cut into the soil vent pipe.

How Do I Stop Rats Getting In My Property?

Well the first part of the answer as i have already touched on is a good thorough investigation, once the point of exit has been found you can look at several methods for repairing the system, they include the following;

•Using CIP drain liners or drain patch repairs we can seal disused branch lines and junctions or seal displaced joints and broken pipe work without the need to excavate in most cases.

•Where pipe work has moved or fractured to a point that a lining method is unsuitable then excavation works are required to repair the system.

•Where disused branch lines discharge into manholes or chambers the simple fitting of a compression bung will suffice.

If you have any concerns over any of the above issues, please call us for advice and guidance - 0800 015 1452

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