Keep Your Heating Ducts Rodent-Free

Even the most modern and sanitary homes can harbor mice that can damage property, ruin food supplies and spread disease. One of the most common places to find mice is within the heating ducts of your HVAC system. Mice use the ductwork for shelter and a passageway between other areas of your home. If you suspect that you may have mice nesting in your air ducts, don’t wait to deal with the problem—it’s not going to go away on its own and rodents are capable of inflicting a surprising amount of damage on not just your HVAC system, but other areas of your home as well.

Can Mice Chew Through Duct Work?

One of the primary reasons that rodents are so destructive is their instinct to chew on just about anything they find. That includes components of your HVAC system, including your air ducts. If there’s already a small opening in your ductwork, they can easily chew their way through into your ducts and made themselves at home. That means that your air ducts, which are tasked with circulating clean air throughout your home, will soon be contaminated with rodent hair and feces.

How to Keep Mice Out of Your Vents

Here are some steps you can take to address the problem of rodents in heating ducts.

• Set traps. Open the grates covering the heating vents and place a mousetrap inside the ducts at each vent. Use standard spring-loaded traps or alternatives such as spin traps or live-catch traps. Bait the traps with material that will attract mice, such as cheese, peanut butter or dried fruit. Check the traps daily and remove dead mice as they’re caught. Rebait and reset the traps or replace them with new ones.
• Prevent access. Seal off areas where mice could potentially get into your home’s ductwork system. Check for openings, gaps or other potential entry points in the roof, wall vents, foundations and other locations. Attach wire mesh over these gaps to keep mice out of the heating ducts. If you find other holes where mice could get into your home, seal them with mesh as well.
• Have ductwork repaired. Rodents in heating ducts can cause significant damage to this important heat distribution system. They can cause broken seals, create gaps between segments of ductwork, and leave behind fur and feces that could be blown into your home’s indoor air. Contact your local trusted HVAC contractor to inspect the furnace and ductwork for damage and to repair any problems that have been caused by mice. Your HVAC pro can clean the ductwork, remove mouse carcasses and reset and reseal ductwork segments to prevent costly air and energy loss.

Customers in Gary, Munster, Griffith, Highland and the surrounding Indiana communities can rely on Meyer’s for expert HVAC sales, service and installation. Contact us today for more information.