Squirrel Chew Follow-Up

Last week’s blog concerned flying squirrels getting into a house on a very steeply pitched roof.

The post highlighted an aspect of the job that makes it difficult and reviewed some flying squirrel basics.

In case you missed that post you can find it here:

The post ended with Ryan stating tht since the area of entry was found, it was now time to remove the squirrels and make a repair.

The squirrels were removed.

And, as Ryan was making the repair he came to the realization that lead flashing around the pipe was present and helps explain the reason this job existed.

Today, we discuss the link between lead and squirrels.

Ryan Discusses Squirrels’ Affinity for Lead

After the squirrels were gone, Ryan got back up on the roof and started opening up and removing what was there in order to make a repair. His goal was to put a new, modern flashing boot around the vent pipe.

This repair will keep out water and nuisance squirrels.

As he was removing the old stuff, he came to the realization that this one pipe still had old materials around it even though the rest of the roof has been updated recently.

This old material was made of lead. Take a look.

As noted, lead is a great product for roof flashing because it is very corrosion resistant and malleable.

Lead flashing has been used for a long time and is still widely available today.

But, there is a risk of squirrels when using lead flashing products. The risk of using lead products is that squirrels do like to chew on it for its aparent sweetness and it is a soft enough metal that they can chew through it.

In doing a little web-based background reading for this piece, we came across a well written article from 2011 from Bob Thomas at Loyola University in New Orleans.

In his “Why Are Gray Squirrels Eating Me Out of House & Lead?” article, he describes much of what Ryan found at this particular job.

Gray squirrels gnawing on lead is a thing.