Anyone have an issue with mice, rats, etc., chewing through your trunk/beer lines?
I live in a modified barn (as in, my father raised horses in it), and while the interior was built up like a normal residence, there are still giant beams behind the walls, and plenty of gaps where pests find homes.
We’ve never had a rat crawl across the living room floor or anything, but there’s been the occasional sounds of scratching/scurrying in a wall, which to us has just become normal.
I’m wondering if any pests might be attracted to my trunk line (glycol-based system)? Could they smell the beer? Any ideas to keep something from chewing through the foam?
Hard line the system, or put a “sheath” around your lines…Something economical would probably be exhaust tubing.
Most of it nowadays is “aluminized” and corrosion resistant.
Any bends you might need can be handled by a muffler shop, and they can be “swaged” on their benders to give you a slip fit over the preceding / following straight run of tubing.
That’s if you have that kind of access to your plumbing, and can slip it inside the tubing with the foam insulation in place…
Yeah protect them lines. I know a few friends that had critters/rodents of some sort chew through wiring in a pole barn and fuel lines in tractors and power tools. Really strange I have heard about wiring before but the fuel lines blew me away, heck whatever it was chewed a plastic fuel tank cap on a lawnmower to half its dimension and you could see it was all chewed up by something. So sweet beer and/ or even glycol in lines has got to be a target I would think. At least your thinking proactively. Would suck to go through all the work and you had to rip it all apart later.
I like the hinge idea posted but wonder if you can even pull a pin on smaller piano hinge it seems in minds eye that those are permanent for some reason. But something in those lines with a s/s insert box or flat mount if space is a premium that would even just swing out on one regular piano/ or totally hidden hinge and the other side just has a simple pin like a race car hood that holds the box/sheet closed. One good way to do this would be to have a drip tray that is mounted to a stainless sheet and the taps come through it. Just mount a hinge on one side, secure with a pin coming out of stud through the s/s sheet and secured with a clip through the pin. Sure you see a small pin/clip on one side but I would gladly trade that for the ability to easily swing open to change/clean lines- taps which you will most certainly want to do on occasion. You could hard plumb everything too and just use a pump system to run through the systems when needed like a bar maintenance program, but then again if something goes wrong bar techs can still access all the components or run entire new trunks somewhat easily and the cost is absorbed because your bringing in profit anyway not like a private homeowner system where new trunk lines could be very costly on occasion.
Here’s the tap tray I am thinking of:
I agree I def want some level of access, for “worst case” scenarios.
I like the idea of using a hinge, other than the aesthetic.
As we install cabinets and whatnot, and my kitchen layout firms up, I’m actually going to have access to about 60% of the space behind the taps. So, I’m no looking at some sort of door/hatch behind the taps, which I believe would just resolve many, many issues here.
I’ll update the thread once it’s done, so you can see the final solution.
Squirrels chew on the telephone lines on the poles around here in Central Ohio, the telephone company just strung new phone lines this past summer. The old ones were chewed clear through the insulation all over the place. I think they chew being curious or something. I doubt if they find it tasty. They are used to knawing through shells to get to nuts, so they probably try to bite into anything to see if there is something inside. Mice probably do the same thing.
