Mice vermin chewing plastic pipe

[HouseholderXX]

As a new user of this site I posted the following in an existing CH thread but I think it is of interest to any CH installer, so here it is again.
I'm a householder with a new CH system with JG Speedfit plastic 'barrier' pipe installed under the suspended floors. Only 8 weeks after start-up we lost pressure (don't ask me about previous pressure losses...we spent £3k digging up and replacing old pipe under solid floors to cure that!).
We were lucky - our plumber thought one of his joints had gone, so we ripped up floors where he'd got most joints, and the mouse had obligingly done his tiny chew right there too.
Three points (I think):
1. Our plumber hadn't read or believed the small print on the JG Speedfit website that says put plastic pipe in trunking if there might be vermin around.
2. Most people don't think most houses have mice. Reality, so the pest control guys said later (council and a commercial firm) is that they get into almost all houses at one time or another, but especially into older houses, or those with greenery growing up the walls. They get through many airbricks too. Arrgghh.
3. Some people seem to think 'barrier' pipe means barrier to mice chewing and have told me so...not so, I can now see, it's a vapour barrier, plastic foil I think.

So my advice to any householder is to keep to copper when pipes are underfloor or in wall cavities and roofs, or run plastic inside the rooms where you can see the mice at work! We had copper in this same house for 25 years, and mice, and no trouble (and no wiring damage either). Is this plastic pipe tasty? Are our fieldmice Fernox freaks?

What do you professionals think?
Wiser-now Householder (and expert mouse-catcher).

 

[HoodedClaw]

Rats and mice love plastic, my mate had plastic pipes in the eves and the rats made an excellent hole in it - he didn't know as it was spraying directly into the cavity on an extention, once the damp was noticed (by the plaster falling off the soaked walls) they thought it was the flat gutter, another 6 months and I found the leak once we took part the roof out. Insurance covered it - 8 months with dryers, remove and replace plaster/roof, decorate 2 rooms, new carpet - probably 5K in all.

All they wanted is the white powder between the plastic layers in hep!

what they got was poision.

 

[Blackcatgas]

Had it twice with Speed fit, there is a bungalow i did a few years ago in hep 20 when I wasnt aware of vermin damage,, this bungalows roof is riddled with rats , mice or whatever, there is droppings everywhere, but they have never touched the hep 20?.

 

[HouseholderXX]

Thanks both. Is there supposed to be any difference between JG Speedfit and Hep2o? Both their websites say you have to get rid of the mice. Hep's statement is a bit more honest than JG's, but esentially they both admit mice can damage plastic. Question is, how often? Presumably hardly ever or you guys would not use plastic?

 

[oldplumber]

rats and squirrels will chew through copper, so what do you suggest now?? Any beasty that eats its way through concrete is going to find soft metal and plastic a doddle, just ensure your insured!

 

[HoodedClaw]

To be honest if you have vermin in the house they will love all electric cables, pipes, insulation.. best bet is just to get the bait boxes/traps down as soon as you hear the 'scratchy/tap tap tap/scuttle' noises at night.

i've had cables chewed more than pipes, and that only twice in 20 years. So no - not very often.

 

[gasmarc]

apparently rats have to chew on tough things to cut their teeth down otherwise they could not eat with long teeth, I have had squirrels in the loft and they can make s hit of wiring in no time, I also replaced a flexi to the bath tap on a top floor flat a few years back after it sprung a leak in the middle of it , well I got a call the other week with the exact same problem ,the guy at the merchants thought it was perhaps a weak spot but I suspect a mouse or a rat. Guy at merchants replaced it FOC

 

[emerald]

i have only seen this once, in 12 years, this was on a cottage in the countryside, i was attending to fit solar panals, whilst i was there i asked their plumber why he was ripping out all of his obviously new first fix for a heating system, it was speedfit that had been completely fxxked by mice or rats before he had even filled the system. they counted around 30 holes before they stopped counting. i have used hep on quite a few jobs and have never had a problem, but i guess if a place was obviously infested then i would choose copper for sure

 

[WHPES]

Polyplumb and Hep20 are a much harder plastic pipe then speedfit and the fittings are GRP plastic. I have only come across mouse damage with Speedfit and JG Pushfit systems.

 

[dontknowitall]

I saw a dead mouse near a plastic pipe a couple of months ago. Unfortunately it had chosen to chew the electric cable ... pipe was in perfect condition.

 

[WHPES]

Came to do a job in a loft and found 5 dead rats up there. Tank had no lid but fortunately there weren't any floaters.

Needed an old kitchen sieve to fish several mice out of a F&E tank 2 weeks ago. Water was black and stinking so couldn't see what was in there. Was a bit like a twisted fairground game!

On another customer's house, the heating stopped working. I found a Magnaclean twintec I had fitted clogged up with hair and when I cleaned it out, everything was going again.

Last year I had a customer complain about poor water flow in the bathroom. I connected a hosepipe from the outside tap to the cold tap in the basin and a mouse's head blew into the header tank. The customer said he noticed a slight smell and his wife ran off to throw up.

In another house, the shower stopped working. This was due to mouse hair clogging the strainers.

A couple of years back I was called out to investigate a bad smell from the drain of a shower. Found nothing wrong with the drains but went into the loft and found an unlidded galvanised tank with a pigeon floating in it in advanced stages of putrefecation.

My electrician found a dead squirrel in a loft once which had chewed a cable.

 

[HouseholderXX]

Hm yes I remember a mouse in our cold tank that had forgotten its water wings. It had chewed its way in through the polystyrene lid (as supplied in 1983). Heavy planked lid now!

And I removed about 10 sacks of squirrel bedding from the eaves of next-door before fitting heavy wire mesh at the eaves.

All indicating that putting plastic pipe in such areas is not sensible!