Can Squirrels Chew Through Metal?
Aluminum siding, aluminum roof vents, aluminum gutters & downspouts, aluminum flashing…as this list indicates, aluminum is a super common building product.
And, it should be.
Aluminum is strong but light. It is corrosion resistant. It is waterproof and durable. It is energy efficient and sustainable. Really, what’s there not to like about aluminum as a building material?
Aluminum’s only drawback that we can think of is that it is not squirrel proof.
Does this come as a surprise? If it does, you’re not alone. Many people mistakenly believe that squirrels don’t chew through any metals. And while some metals like stainless steel and galvanized steel are hard enough to stop squirrels, sheet aluminum is soft enough for the squirrels to chew through.
Take a look.
Aluminum Chewing Squirrel
In the following video Ryan shows an aluminum vent that squirrels chewed right through.
The moral of this story is that squirrels are tough to stop! They’ll chew through wood, vinyl, plastic, asphalt shingles, and even soft metals like aluminum to get where they want to go.
So, what is to be done for tough chewing squirrels?
Before we give our two cents, consider the following discussion we found on an online message board where a reader of a home improvement magazine asked pretty much this exact question to the online community.
The questioner writes:
Someone responded to another member with louver chewing:
And a final comment to consider from this discussion:
To us, it appears the homeowners involved in this discussion have some good first hand knowledge of squirrels and their chewing abilities. It also seems that there is a general consensus that some removal or “eviction” is necessary as a part of the solution. They are on the right track.
Remove Those Squirrels
So here is our two cents:
A thorough, systematic removal of the offending squirrels is necessary and more important than the type of building materials used to make the repairs.
Thorough removal of the offending squirrels is the first step to achieve a long term solution.
Consider the squirrels in the video above. What if Ryan were to just put some steel hardware cloth over the whole vent? If installed properly, the squirrels wouldn’t be able to chew through it. What would the result be? In all likelihood, the squirrels would have to stop using this area but just move to some other unprotected spot on the same structure. The squirrel problem would still exist. We can’t plate everything in 1/8″ steel.
Repair/Reinforcement is an important second step. This step gives the best chance of stopping future squirrels but only after this group of offending squirrels is no longer present.
We’ve written about this before and hope you’ll read this previous post.
Beware of Repair Without Removal
Squirrel Removal and Building Repairs for Akron, Canton, Kent
If squirrels have taken advantage of a situation on your home’s exterior and moved in give Frontline Animal Removal a call today.
We have the skills and experience to remove the squirrels and fix the issue that gave them an advantage.
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