Minnesota and Wisconsin homes often deal with seasonal waves of wildlife, plant, and animal, big and small. From squirrel nests to the migration of birds to the migration of insects, each unique season creates a unique relationship between the ecosystem and your house. Combined with the occasional serious storm, it’s no wonder exterior home improvements are a popular choice for local MN and WI homeowners.
If your home experiences seasonal or ongoing pest concerns, an exterior improvement project is one of the best things you can do for your home. Squirrels, stink bugs, ants, bed bugs, and everything in between may be seeking refuge in or near your home. Replacing old materials and fixing little cracks is all it takes to keep most critters at bay—and living in the great outdoors where they belong.
Here at Revive Restoration, we know how easy it is to combine smart home maintenance with elegant improvements. Let’s look at the ten best exterior remodeling projects to keep pests out of your home.
1. Install New Vents, Grates, and Drain Covers
Take a walk around your home, inside and out. Check around for missing or damaged vents, grates, and drain covers, as these items often go missing or stop being functional over time. Give your home a little touch-up with new grates, vents, and drain covers. Decorative vent covers, if properly designed, are both elegant and protect your home, especially in places like the warm, moist dryer vent that leads outside.
Check any grates that may lead to a crawl space below the house and replace them with new, elegant, and pest-resistant models. Your home can become both more elegant and better protected at the same time.
2. Repair Any Cracks in Your Foundation
Walk your foundation and look closely at the concrete behind the soil and garden decor. Check for cracks in the base or cladding that might indicate too much moisture or unstable soil below. Use foundation-strength concrete caulk to seal up any cracks where insects, small rodents, or creeping plant roots might be able to crawl in.
This is also an important opportunity to check for any serious foundation issues early before your doorways go crooked.
3. Have Your Chimney Repaired and Covered
An unprotected chimney is the perfect warm escape for small animals who don’t realize the danger of their nest. Chimney maintenance is usually “out of sight, out of mind” until the first time your flue backs up. A little chimney maintenance can go a long way to keeping pests out and your living room soot-free.
Have your roofer or chimney specialist seal up cracks in the brick, check the flashing, and replace loose mortar. Then, the right mesh-covered chimney cap is essential to prevent opportunistic nesting.
4. Replace Old Doors and Windows
Your entry points can become entry points for pests as well. Rattling windows and whistling doors don’t have to let the ants come marching – or let conditioned air out. Start with weather stripping, window screens, and caulk around the edges of your apertures. However, for very old doors and double-paned windows that have lost their gas seal, replacing your doors and windows can be the best way to re-insulate your house and protect it from tiny pests.
5. Improve Your Yard Drainage Design
Every home’s yard should be shaped for intelligent drainage design, but this doesn’t always happen. Water forming pools can attract pests, water near your foundation can soften the soil below, and water flowing where it shouldn’t contribute to flooding. With just a little work with a shovel or with your landscaper, you can reshape your yard to flow water downhill away from the house, never form pools, and follow a safe drainage path.
If you get frequent heavy rains, consider a pebble-lined yard creek that is both beautiful and functional in wet or dry weather.
6. Inspect and Improve Your Siding
The integrity of your siding is essential to keeping pests out of the house. Siding can develop cracks or almost invisibly pull away from the house, creating a place for insects and small creatures to get in.
Have your home’s siding inspected to estimate its age, condition, and current pest risk. Siding repair, repainting, and siding replacement are all options to help keep pests out of your home and make your house more beautiful from the outside.
7. Swap Your Outdoor Lightbulbs
Did you know that bugs like white light more than yellow? A simple swap of the light bulbs in your garden can change the insect concentration around the outside of your house. Switch to a soft, yellow glow instead of clear white to enjoy your summer evenings with far fewer moths and gnats floating around your back porch.
Plan Your Pest-Stopping Exterior Home Improvements with Revive Restoration
The Revive Restoration team specializes in home improvements as home maintenance and home rescues that become home improvement. We believe that disaster or prevention, every home project is a chance to make your home even better than before.
If you have a pest problem, we can help you find the ideal project to stop pests and improve your home. Contact us today for the best pest-stopping exterior home remodeling for your Minnesota or Wisconsin home.
