Pro Tips For Commercial Building Professionals

4 Bird Proofing Tips for Commercial Buildings

When birds cause damage to your commercial building, they threaten your business and the health & safety of the public. Pest birds are more than a nuisance for business owners. They can cause millions of dollars of damage to commercial buildings each year. Learning how to bird proof your commercial building is an essential part of keeping your business safe. Use these bird proofing tips for commercial buildings to get started.

The Proofing Tips

1. Practice Environmental Control

Birds choose roosting and nesting areas that provide them with shelter, food, water, and a clear view. High ledges, difficult-to-reach signs, and rooftops make commercial buildings particularly attractive to birds. Eliminating these necessities can help you avoid the presence of birds around your business. Since you can't change the structure of your building, it's important to eliminate other attractants from the area. 

You probably don't feed birds on purpose, but your landscape could be a buffet to hungry birds. Food sources for birds can come from trash cans, dropped food, and even crumbs left behind at outdoor eating areas. Eliminate food sources when possible and conceal temptations that remain. 

Also, determine whether your business really needs trash cans outdoors. If they're a necessity, make sure trash is tightly covered at all times and baskets are emptied frequently. Place signs around your parking lots and sidewalks to remind your customers not to feed birds. Remove water sources by getting rid of bowls or basins that collect water. If standing water collects in puddles on your roof, it may be necessary to mop this water away after heavy rain. 

2. Use Deterrents to Discourage Birds From Hanging Around

Birds visit potential nesting sites many times before beginning to build a nest. These visits allow birds to test the safety of potential nesting and roosting spots. Making your commercial building less attractive to these birds can help you eliminate the possibility of becoming a victim of a pest bird infestation. 

Bird deterrents are bird control products that make areas unattractive or uncomfortable for birds. This is often accomplished by creating an atmosphere that will scare away offending birds. 

The most common deterrents include visual and audio bird deterrents, like predator decoys and sonic devices that emit distress calls. Some deterrents put off an offensive odor and taste to make food sources unappealing. Finally, deterrents that make a space uncomfortable (like bird spikes) can prevent certain birds from landing on ledges or eaves that would otherwise be ideal. Optical gel is a new type of bird deterrent that works on many surfaces of commercial buildings to deter birds using both appearance and odor. 

3. Add Exclusion Products to Successfully Bird Proof Your Commercial Building

Keeping determined pest birds away from your commercial building can be a challenge. While deterrents can be effective alone, you may benefit from a combination of products. Exclusion bird control products are designed to create a physical barrier that prevents bird entry. If you already have a bird infestation, exclusion products will likely be necessary to get things under control.

Types of Products

Some of the most common exclusion bird control products include:

• • Bird Netting: Used in a variety of areas like balconies, garages, barns, hangars, storefront signs, and loading docks, bird netting keeps birds from entering structures. Available in multiple sizes, bird netting can keep out all species of birds.
• • Bird Wire: One of the least visible bird control methods, bird wire is used to create an unstable landing space that prevents birds from using exposed ledges or pipes for roosting. Spring-tensioned stainless steel wire attaches to stainless steel posts at different heights and intervals to prevent birds from roosting comfortably.
• • Solar Panel Exclusion: A growing number of commercial buildings utilize solar panels. Birds and other pests get under solar panel arrangements to create sheltered nesting areas. This activity can lead to damaged wires and other components of the system. Nearly invisible protectors make it impossible for birds to get in, so your system remains protected.
• • Vent Guards: To birds, vents look like a safe place to build a nest and raise chicks. Unfortunately, when these vents are in use, nests can create ventilation blockages and start fires. This also leads to a catastrophic ending for nesting birds. Vent guards are designed to prevent birds from entering vents from the outside of the building while letting the vents still work as intended.
• • Bird Slides: Most ledges create a perfect safe spot for birds to roost and nest comfortably. This spells disaster for commercial buildings with high ledges: the building becomes littered with droppings, feathers, and nesting materials. Bird slides prevent birds from landing on ledges, eaves, and I-beams by creating a sloped surface that doesn't allow birds to get a grip.

4. Seek Professional Help

Bird proofing tips for commercial buildings can make the job easier, but it still isn't an easy task. While you may be able to purchase professional bird control tools and products, these products must be installed properly for success. Improper installation is one of the main reasons for bird control failure. But, as a business owner, you don't have the time to learn a completely new profession.

When you hire a bird control specialist, you can get back to the business of running your business while your bird control team finds the right bird control solution for your unique building. Professional bird control specialists have the education to install bird control methods so they're practically invisible and work as intended without any drawbacks for you or the individuals using your building. They also know which products work best in a given area. This means you get total protection without any of the work.

Implementing These Bird Proofing Tips for Commercial Buildings

With these bird proofing tips for commercial buildings, protecting your property is possible. Once the right prevention and deterrence methods are in place, you can avoid the damage that pest birds inflict on commercial buildings. To learn more about bird proofing your commercial building and other bird control solutions, get in touch with the bird control experts at Bird Barrier today.

About Bird Barrier

Bird Barrier is a leader in innovative technology designed to prevent birds from landing, roosting or nesting. We specialize in urban bird control to remove birds humanely and effectively. Our website, birdbarrier.com, hosts a wealth of content to help people understand and identify bird control solutions for various problems with pest birds. Please contact us if you need help with a bird related problem. Call 1.800.NO.BIRDS.