What Proofing Covers
£180 buys up to an hour's work sealing small accessible entry points. It is deliberately a defined job rather than an open-ended one, so you know what you are paying for. Structural repairs, roofing work and drain repairs are not proofing — they are a builder's, roofer's or drainage contractor's job, and we will say so rather than patch them.
Air bricks and suspended floors
Finchley, Mill Hill, Edgware, Whetstone and Burnt Oak are largely interwar houses with suspended timber floors ventilated by air bricks. A cracked or missing air brick is an open door to the whole underfloor void, and from there mice can reach the length of the house without crossing a room. It is the single most common Barnet entry point.
Pipe and cable entries
Wherever a waste pipe, gas supply, boiler flue or cable passes through an external wall there is a hole, and the mortar around it is rarely a close fit. The back of a kitchen, the boiler run and the point where a later extension was joined to the original wall are the places we check first.
The roofline
Barnet's deep eaves and ageing soffit boards are how squirrels and birds get into lofts. Small gaps at a soffit joint can be closed within the proofing hour; a soffit board that has rotted along its length is a roofing repair, and we would rather tell you that than charge for a temporary fix.
Doors and thresholds
The gap under a back door, a garage door or a side gate door is often wide enough for a mouse and sometimes for a rat. Brush strips and threshold seals are quick, cheap and among the most useful things done in the hour.
What proofing will not fix
- A broken drain — that needs a CCTV survey and a drainage contractor
- A rotted or missing soffit or fascia board — a roofing repair
- Rats arriving along an open brook corridor — the route stays there whatever you seal
- Structural gaps, subsidence cracks or a failed cavity closer
- An untreated infestation — proofing comes after treatment, not instead of it
