Pest-Proofing Exterior Doors to Keep Rodents Out

Just like people, mice and rats commonly use doors to enter buildings, but they typically go under them rather than through them. To rodent-proof a door, you can install door sweeps and thresholds at the bottom, and weather seals or weather stripping around the sides and top.

There are weather seal door kits for every kind of door: vinyl thresholds designed to eliminate the gap at the bottom of garage doors (a common entry point for mice), kits for sliding glass doors, kits for overhead doors in commercial accounts, even aircraft hanger door kits.

• Door sweeps - If the distance between the bottom of the door and the threshold is more than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm), install a tight-fitting door sweep. Door sweeps range from vinyl or rubber strips, to a simple nylon brush on a screw-on strip, to more elaborate brushes that are enclosed in a metal threshold. Bristle sweeps are preferred over rubber or plastic sweeps which rodents can easily chew through. There are also automatic door sweeps that drop down and seal into place when the door is closed.

In commercial accounts with heavy rodent activity, you can protect existing rubber or vinyl door sweeps by installing a metal kick plate on the outside of the door. Fit outside floors with 26-gauge sheet metal plates that are 12 inches (30.5 cm) tall and mounted no more than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) from the bottom of the door. Make sure the kick plate doesn't interfere with the swing of the door.

• Weather stripping - Weather stripping around a door seals the sides and top as well, eliminating even more gaps to keep rodents out. Weatherstripping around a door also helps keep out other smaller occasional invaders like crickets, cockroaches, lady beetles, and stink bugs. Weather stripping is available in many varieties including wrapped foam flange, foam tape, rubber, vinyl, felt, and metal compression strips. Door sealing kits come in a wide range of sizes depending on the door style and the size of the gap to be sealed. Full door sealing kits include a header seal, jamb seals, and door bottom seals.

In addition to keeping rodents and other pests out, there are several advantages to sell your customer in weather proofing and pest-proofing of their exterior doors. Energy costs are lowered by keeping weather and drafts out, and noise is reduced from outside to inside. In commercial accounts, weatherproofing doors stops smells, light, and heat that emanate from the inside of the facility to the outside, attracting pests. Sealing doors keeps dust out of the facility. By reducing pests inside, sealing and weatherproofing of doors reduces the amount of pesticide and traps used in an account.