Natural perils? (Prescott, Chino Valley: tornado, earthquakes, live in)

[keninaz]

Fences? I don't need no stinkin' fences!

[Esenjay]

I do, it keeps the riff-raff out of my backyard.

[keninaz]

My neighbors stay away, they know I carry.

[wretched wrench]

Originally Posted by keninaz

.........installed your electrical within conduit in your walls due to rats and mice. Funny, I know of nobody that has had problems like that around here but I suppose if you lived with trash laying around that would attract them then you should be prepared.

Not in the walls, but I have a friend who had his RV wiring destroyed by rodents while parked in his driveway. It cost him thousands. He lives in a very good neighborhood (Ewin dr) that has no trash laying around anywhere.

We are a little more rural, and the rodents were here before we were. They are a fact of life. I try to control them, as they are rattlesnake food, and we don't really want the rattlers surprising us.

So, rodents are a legitimate concern. And, they do indeed like to chew insulation.

BTW, doesn't the building code require conduit?

[keninaz]

I agree with you. I had a neighbor in SE AZ where I had several acres that insisted on dumping his trash, including the wet stuff, in the back of a trailer that he would haul away when he felt like it.
It attracted pack rats that tried to eat almost anything, and they will.
They started to eat some wiring in my wife's new Ford truck and I started shooting them and poisoning them as fast as I could.
I then told the neighbor to clean up his act and he told me what I could do with myself so I called the county and had him cited. He did not like the fine and was told by the county inspector if I called them again it would be double.
And the NEC (the national electrical code) does not require it for homes and it's the standard unless the local jurisdiction wants to go over that in requirements.
I was an electrical supervisor before I retired. We did things a little different on the federal property that I worked on but we still had to meet or exceed the NEC.

[DellNec]

Originally Posted by wretched wrench

Not in the walls, but I have a friend who had his RV wiring destroyed by rodents while parked in his driveway. It cost him thousands. He lives in a very good neighborhood (Ewin dr) that has no trash laying around anywhere.

So, rodents are a legitimate concern. And, they do indeed like to chew insulation.

Yep.

I know of two people who had their home wiring destroyed by rodents out in Prescott Valley & Prescott. Both times the rodents chewed through the Romex. One home almost caught on fire because of it.

Outdoor vehicles are havens for rodents. They can crawl in and get to the electrical easily. They like to build nests in the crevices and interior of the cars.

Originally Posted by wretched wrench

BTW, doesn't the building code require conduit?

Not in Yavapai County. In other counties & states metal conduit is required, but not here. That is one of my gripes with the lax building codes out here.

[wretched wrench]

Originally Posted by DellNec

Yep.


Outdoor vehicles are havens for rodents.

The Wickenburg paper had an article last year about pack rats chewing up wires in garaged cars, too. Apparently it is hard to keep them out.

In other counties & states metal conduit is required, but not here.

Conduit keeps rodents from chewing, and also makes adding or upgrading circuits a jillion times easier.
BX would give rodent protection but no future upgrade capabilities. I paid extra for conduit.

[DellNec]

Originally Posted by wretched wrench

The Wickenburg paper had an article last year about pack rats chewing up wires in garaged cars, too. Apparently it is hard to keep them out.

Usually when rats/mice chew through garage and home wiring, it trips the breaker but there times when it can still cause a fire.

When the FD rules the cause of fire, they will simply state "electrical wiring". They estimate that 35% of all electrical fires are caused by rodents chewing on the wires. In areas like Prescott, when a house fire happens and the cause is "electrical", 1 out of 3 times it is due to some rodent chewing on the wires.

A mouse can fit through a 1/4" gap and a rat can fit through a 1/2" gap.

[keninaz]

It's simple
~~~move~

[wretched wrench]

To a place with no rodents, or to a place where the code requires conduit?