Damaged and dirty drains, or those with an improper installation, all represent the perfect environments for a rat infestation in and around your home or business. Your drainage system connects to the sewers beneath. Of course, this lower level is teeming with vermin. As such, it’s vital that you undertake regular drain cleaning, maintenance and repairs. Drains in good working order have greater protection against disease-carrying rats. Where needed, you can also install specialist features at your Dartford property to prevent rat entry.
Applying rodenticide in the sewers is simply a non-starter. It’s labour intensive, costly, and would require regular applications to have an ongoing effect. Of course, there are ethical concerns too.
As such, it falls on you as the property owner to protect your premises against rats. In this blog we look at some of the most effective solutions.
Below, we have listed some of the approaches you can take to keep your drains in Dartford clear of vermin. Please note, we are taking work like regular drain cleaning, maintenance and repairs as a given.
As the name suggests, this option creates pipework with no opening between the home-based discharge stack and the sewer. This does not eliminate the prospect of rats entering your property by infiltrating directly from the sewer itself, although this is a rare occurrence.
This kind of drainage requires regular access covers throughout the system for inspection chambers as well as entry rods for clearing blockages. These allow for drain cleaning and maintenance at your Dartford-based property from surface level.
Barriers against rats include a variety of devices within your pipes, such as:
Also known as the Buchan Trap, the Bristol Interceptor or the disconnecting trap, these features are a section of U-bend in domestic drainage pipes made from fireclay. The range of benefits is often contested, however. Filled with water, the U-bend does prevent attractive odours from travelling down to the sewer.
But the water isn’t always effective in stopping rats. They can usually swim through it with ease. What’s more, the structure is also susceptible to blocks, so it needs frequent drain cleaning and clearance.
Another solution for your Dartford property comes in the form of plastic covers or metal gratings. Placed inside drainage pipes, these features allow waste materials to pass, but not rats. Likewise, metal cages placed in the ventilation pipes stemming over the discharge stack block common routes of rat entry and escape.
For your peace of mind, PMB Environmental Ltd undertakes a complete range of drain cleaning, clearance, maintenance and repairs in the Dartford area. For an insight into the quality of our service and results, please read our testimonials