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New building question

Printed From: Unofficial Allis
Category: Other Topics
Forum Name: Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks
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URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=186262
Printed Date: 24 Aug 2025 at 5:32pm
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Topic: New building question
Posted By: Schst
Subject: New building question
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 5:34pm
About 2 years ago I purchased one of those sheds that everybody sells on the edge of town.
The shed sits about 6" above the ground. Is it worth putting chicken wire around the building or using solid material with a few vent screens to keep the critters out. Hate to think how many rabbits, mice, who knows what is living there now.



Replies:
Posted By: DiyDave
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 5:59pm
Wood sill, sitting on the ground?  If so, it has about a 12-15 yeare life span, at least here, in the mid-Atlantic region...Wink

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Posted By: PaulB
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 7:02pm
You'll never get things wrapped up tight enough to keep all the little critters out. Raise it up as High as you can on one side, spray paint everything you possibly can, repeat from other side. If you can fumigate it a couple times a year and scatter some mothballs under it, that about as good as it can get. Cats help with keeping critters at bay. 
  The biggest damage to those buildings is rain splash from the ground back up. Setting them on stones or other surface to keep the mud splash away is the thing to do. 


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If it was fun to pull in LOW gear, I could have a John Deere.
Real pullers don't have speed limits.
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Posted By: Schst
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 8:13pm
It's sitting on those 4x4 cement pavers


Posted By: Schst
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 8:16pm
What if I was to install tin flashing at bottom edge


Posted By: DiyDave
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 8:28pm
18" metal flashing, buried 12+ inchess may help for a while, not with rot issues, though.  It might make a ground hog or skunks  think twice about an easy home...Wink

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Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2022 at 11:05pm
Do what we do for chicken pens-  get a roll of 24" hardware cloth, roll it out flat, put a bend in it in the middle.  Dig away the top 8" of dirt out 12" from the building, lay that L of hardware cloth in with flat side in the dirt, vertical side against the building.  Take a 2x4, and screw it to the building to sandwich the vertical side, repeat for the other three sides, overlapping the corners on both the horizontal and vertical planes, then backfill.

Use hardware cloth to cover vents.

The vertical portion will prevent critters from going under the exposed bottom edge.  The horizontal part will keep critters from digging down, then going under.  They'd have to step back a foot from the building, and dig down beneath it, to get in.

Mice will climb right up the sides, and chew under the soffits and gables, or through the bottom edges of the doors.  Thin sheets of galanized steel are your friend here-  bend it to wrap around the edges and corners, so they can't chew on them... then make sure the door closures pull in tight so that there's no gap they can wiggle through.

If you use poison baits, only place them INSIDE the shed, and inside screwed-down enclosures that your patrol cats cannot get to, or move... so your hunting-staff doesn't get exposed to it... and don't let your guardians get to the rodents which have succomed to the bait.

Keep grass seed, bird seed, etc., inside tin cans with tight-fitting lids... galvanized garbage cans, fancy cookie tins, the metal discs that those awful fruitcake came in, and of course, the tall metal cans that show up at the office full of three kinds of popcorn at christmastime work great... keep them on the floor, or on secure shelves where they can't get knocked to the floor and spilled open.


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Ten Amendments, Ten Commandments, and one Golden Rule solve most every problem. Citrus hand-cleaner with Pumice does the rest.


Posted By: shameless dude
Date Posted: 07 Feb 2022 at 1:03am
X2 what Dave says...critters usually want to get out of the breezeway in winter, that's why hardware cloth is good on the outside, it allows the cold wind to blow under the building. when i had my cook shack built, the crew chief said to take caulking and rub it all along the bottom edge of the siding to prevent moisture from seeping up into the siding. i also did the tops of the siding that makes the doors on it. all the out buildings on our farms all had solid enclosures around the bottoms of them. the rats really forms large communes under them. when i removed the tin on the bottoms, they scattered and after poisoning the left overs, they never came back. i had removed their wind break. i left it open and it solved the problem of the rats and what ever else would have lived under there! up on our deck, the lower deck sits close to the ground and we put that PVC lattice on those edges, small critters can still come and go, but they don't live there cuz the wind can/does go under it.     


Posted By: ac fleet
Date Posted: 08 Feb 2022 at 4:09pm
X-2 on Daves idea!!!


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