How Rodents and Critter Can Create Foundation Problems?
The winter has gone. This is the initial days of summer and with the warmer days, the threats of rodents and critters increase. When the birds are chirping, the rodents may dig a hole in the yard, your sidewalk, stairs, patio, driveway and more. This infestation is enough to cause foundation void and make the slabs to crack and settle. The animals that burrow are ants, rabbits, ground squirrels, moles, foxes, shrews etc.
What to do about animal infestation?
Contact pest control: If you find rodent infestation at your home, the first thing should be calling pest calling service. The every type of critters has different dealing process. Otherwise you have to go through the same process of hiring foundation repair professionals throughout the year.
Find a specialist: The foundation repair companies have experts for concrete problems. They use high end equipment like ground penetrating radar for finding problem areas. What professionals do for repairing the cracks are - they inject polyurethane under the slabs and fill the voids and cracks. It lifts the concrete to the correct condition.
How Do Critters Make Foundation Damage?
Burrow Under
Settles and shifted soils are the two most common problems that come with sinking concrete. There are multiple factors that add to the soil shifting like soil erosion and drainage problems. Burrowing rodents also cause soil shifting, often they do harm much faster than other elemental factors.
Rodents dig under everything when they are in search of new home or they want to avoid predators. It includes foundation and concrete slabs. The rodents cause voids and growth in a faster rate that puts the structural integrity under questions and causes dangerous hazards. Where elemental factors take years to grow a void, an active mice family can do that in a few days.
Chewing
Certain kind of rodents chews more than digging. Mole rats have huge frontal teeth and claws for burrowing. But the standard house mice are good at climbing and gripping. Typically, most of the rodents have frontal teeth capable for incision. These front teeth grow constantly and need gnawing for maintenance.
Though it is less likely of mice to chew concrete but that is not completely something unheard. When concrete is mixed, poured and sealed correctly a rat would not be able to chew it up. Whereas, if that is deteriorating or crumbling and the innards are exposed a rat may chew it in desperation of gnawing.
If you find rodents at home or suspect rodents have burrowed under concrete slab or foundation, call us at Ramjack by American Leveling. In Oklahoma City, we serve as a foundation repair company.