Sealing your house can solve many in home infestations. Insects and other pests often will enter a home through an unsealed door, torn screen, crack in the foundation or walls. After entry the pest will inhabit a portion of your home and reproduce. After a pest has infested your home it can be very difficult to exterminate. To prevent these pest from entering your home specific measures can be taken to seal these entry points. In this article, we will cover all aspects of a home seal for pest prevention.
Prior to investing in sealing your house read our Post on Ways You Can Prevent Pests in Your Yard and Home. By following these tips you may be able to alleviate the need for sealing.
If you are thinking about purchasing a home be sure to read our article How To Tell if a House has Scorpions.
Home Inspections
- Nighttime pesticide-free scorpion control
- Services exterior and interior of the home and yard
- Determine the source of the scorpion infestation
- Identify pest habitats to remove
- Customized strategy to exterminate scorpions
Why Seal A House
Sealing your home can have many benefits. First and foremost the goal is to prevent pests. Other affects of home sealing are reduced energy use, prevention of water damage and making your home more secure.
How Home Sealing Prevents Pests
By eliminating the entry points into your home pests will no longer be able to gain entry. This is the best defense you can take to prevent an indoor infestation. Sealing is also great at removing habitats for pests on the exterior of your home. These habitats and entry points can be located below ground in your foundation or on the top of your roof.
How Home Sealing Saves Energy
By eliminating the entry points into your home pests will no longer be able to gain entry. This is the best defense you can take to prevent an indoor infestation. Sealing is also great at removing habitats for pests on the exterior of your home. These habitats and entry points can be located below ground in your foundation or on the top of your roof.
How Home Sealing Prevents Water Damage
The same way energy can escape out through an unsealed home water can enter. The smallest of cracks can let in gallons of water over an extended period of time. Once water has a way of entering your home it will become a source of hydration for any pest living in your home.
How Home Sealing Protects Your Home
Perhaps the most overlooked advantage of sealing your house is the deterrent it can be to burglars. Gaps in your doors or windows can provide an opening for a malcontent to use to gain entry. A broken screen or damage to your fence can be an open invitation to someone with a bad idea. Sealing will fix these issues causing your home to be less appealing to a criminal.
What Is Home Sealing
Home sealing is a method of mechanical pest control that prevents the entry of pests into your house and or property. There are many different things that can be done to your home or land to prevent pest entry. Some of the most common approaches are sealing cracks, gaps and holes on the exterior of your home, screening vents and windows properly, sealing doors and windows and placing or repairing property walls.
Sealing Cracks, Gaps & Holes
Cracks, gaps and holes are the most common entry points into a home. These can located anywhere from the base of your foundation to the seam where your roof meets your wall. These tiny little spaces are perfect for species like the Little Black Ant (Monomorium minimum). These issues can be fixed by using a weatherproof silicon caulking
or a patch
for larger jobs.
Screening Vents and Windows
A missing or damaged screen can open your home to a bevy of flying or crawling pests. Older homes may have screens missing from the air flow vents all around the attic. These vents are perfect openings for flying insects like Africanized Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) or Golden Paper Wasps (Polistes aurifer) to enter then build a next in your house.
Window screens are the first barrier for pests.A damaged window screen can allow pests access to your windows open or closed. Even a slight tear can be large enough for a German Cockroach (Blattella germanica) to squeeze through. These tears can be fixed by replacing the entire screen or using a screen patch
.
Sealing Doors and Windows
Gaps surrounding doors and windows are an open invitation to pests. Sliding doors are a huge culprit as these are hard to seal completely. Home owners will often leave these doors open in the summer, allowing all pests to enter. Open doors or improperly sealed doors are the main way Tropical House Cricket (Gryllodes sigillatus) enter a home. To ensure windows are sealed properly try using a silicon caulking, to seal doors use weather stripping
. To make sure you doors close behind you use self closing hinge
or kit for your sliding doors.
Property Walls
Having a perimeter wall can prevent many pests from entering your property. These work best for large pests like Javelinas (Pecari tajacu), Coyotes (Canis latrans), Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox) and Gila Monsters (Heloderma suspectum). Any type of fence will suffice for large animals as long as there are no gaps at the bottom for animals to squeeze through. For small pests, a solid fence like a stucco concrete block fence should be used.
Home Sealing For Scorpions
Scorpions are a huge problem in the Phoenix, Arizona area. The Arizona Bark Scorpions (Centruroides sculpturatus) is the most main abundant pest on many properties. These scorpions can be found all over a yard and home. The ability to climb and squeeze through any opening smaller than one sixteenth of an inch allows them to gain entry into many places. The best way to prevent these pests are to properly seal your home and property fence.
Sealing Your Home
The first step in preventing scorpions into your home is to seal it properly. You can do this yourself or hire a company to do this for you. If you have a serious problem a professional is your best bet. The point of sealing is to prevent entry points so be sure your home is sealed from roof to foundation.
Sealing Property Walls
The favorite habitat for scorpions is inside the concrete block property walls that surround many of the homes in Phoenix. The gaps where each segment meets and the space in between individual blocks provide a perfect entry point into these structures. To seal these wall use an all weather foam or caulking or cover the entire thing in stucco. Stucco works and looks the best, it is important to do both sides of the wall so it will no longer be a habitat.
Home Sealing In Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix and all of Arizona has some of the most extreme weather in our nation. Due to this proper consideration needs to made to combat the high temperatures, cool winter nights and monsoon rains. Be sure that your home sealing company follows these measures when sealing your home.
How A Home Is Sealed
Here are a list of things that most companies will do when they seal a home. Be sure that the company you choose is doing everything they can to prevent pests in your house.
Access Points
- Seal the foundation
- Seal door frames
- Seal door thresholds
- Adjust weather stripping
- Screen exhaust vents
- Seal around plumbing
Pest Prevention
- Dust cracks and crevices
- Dust attic space
- Dust block wall voids
- Dust around plumbing
- Dust exterior wall voids
- Dust window tracks
Possible Gaps
- Seal around A/C lines
- Seal around A/C boxes
- Seal electrical boxes
- Seal around cable boxes
- Seal plumbing clean outs
- Seal plumbing entry
How Much Does Home Sealing Cost
Sealing your home can be very pricey. Most companies will charge by the square footage, while others may charge for time and materials. When evaluating the price look at what the company will be doing, how long it will take and the quality in materials they use. Some companies are cheap for a reason and others are more expensive because they use the best materials and have the most experience. This is an investment so be sure you are spending your money wisely.
The price can vary on what needs to be done. Often times sealing company will neglect to seal property walls which is one of the favorite habitats for scorpions. Be sure you understand what your home and property needs to be sealed, how it will be done and the price associated with all your needs. The company we work with starts at $750 and goes up based on the square footage.
Home Sealing Resources
Here are some resources I found while conducting research for this article. To find out more about bug proofing and home sealing feel free to review my sources.
University of Arizona – How To Bug Proof Your Home
This is the best thing I found about bug proofing and home sealing. It talks about the individual prevention of different type of pests. It is very in depth and complete. It will take some time to read but it is worth it. This is the most complete bug proofing guide I have ever seen.
