Which Trade Does What

What we do

The Actual Scope

Identify what you have. Establish how it is getting in and what is keeping it there. Treat it. Close the ways in. Clear up what it left. Advise on what would stop it recurring, and put that in writing where it matters.

That includes a fair amount of physical work — mesh over airbricks, closures at pipe entries, roofline proofing, a non-return valve in a drain, replacing fouled loft insulation.

What it does not include is repairing the building. The distinction that matters: we close openings; we do not fix what made them. Mesh over an airbrick is ours. Replacing a rotten bargeboard so something can be fixed to it is not.

Images on this page are illustrations only.

The electrician

Chewed Cable, Every Time

Rodents and squirrels gnaw cable because their incisors grow continuously, not because they want to eat it, and a damaged conductor in loft insulation is a genuine fire risk.

That is always an electrician — someone registered with a recognised scheme who can inspect and test the affected circuits and certify what they replace. Damaged cable gets replaced, not taped: tape restores neither the insulation rating nor the mechanical protection.

Worth knowing that a circuit breaker will not reliably catch this. Breakers protect against overload and short circuit, not a small intermittent arc at a partly damaged cable, which can smoulder insulation without drawing enough current to trip anything. An RCD improves the odds and is not a reason to leave it.

If you can smell hot plastic, or see scorching, that is an electrician today. Turning the affected circuit off at the consumer unit meanwhile is reasonable.

The drainage contractor

And Who Owns the Pipe

We survey drains, identify where rodents are entering the system and fit non-return valves. We do not repair, reline or excavate drains — that is a drainage contractor.

Before anybody quotes for excavation, establish whose pipe it is. A drain serving your building alone and inside your boundary is yours. A lateral drain from the boundary to the sewer, and the sewer itself, are the water company's — and so is a run serving more than one property, which surprises most people. A defect on their side is their repair and it is not billed to you.

The builder, and the Gas Safe engineer

The Other Two

The builder. Rotten timber, failed mortar, structural damage from gnawing, a chamber buried under an extension, rendering that has come away. Proofing needs something sound to fix to, so on older property the order is sometimes repair first, proofing second. We will say when.

The Gas Safe engineer. This one is not discretionary. If a bird or a squirrel, or nesting material, has got into a flue serving a gas appliance, a partially blocked flue can spill combustion products into the room and carbon monoxide has no smell. Turn the appliance off, do not use it, and have it checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer before it is used again. No pest controller can do or sign off that check.

Why it matters

Three Practical Reasons

Certification. Electrical and gas work needs certifying by someone entitled to certify it. Work done by the wrong trade can be worthless when you sell, claim or let.

Insurance. A claim for damage is much stronger with the right trade's report attached. "The pest controller said the wiring looked alright" is not an inspection.

Cost. Knowing which is the large number changes what you do first. On most drain rat jobs the treatment is a small number and the repair is the large one — and sometimes the large one is not yours to pay.

Anyone who offers to do all of it is worth a second look.

Short answers

Drain Blocker Questions

Going further

Drain and Rat Guides