Budget dictates I patch this one and plan in a rewire soon.
If you "need a re-wire soon" (for other reasons), then fair enough, but I certainly wouldn't suggest that you have a rewire solely because you have found that one bit of rodent damage.
I think that there has to be some pragmatism. I live in a very large house which, like yours, is in a pretty rural location, such that rodents (particularly mice) are an inevitable fact of life which cannot, as has been suggested, really be "sorted once and for all"
One can, and should, take steps to reduce the potential problem, but, in a location like mine, it's unlikely that one will ever 'eliminate it for evermore'.
A few years ago, I (by chance) stumbled across the rodent damage to a cable pictured below. I exposed cables in the immediate vicinity and found no other damage. Lifting all the floorboards 'for inspection of cables' in the very large house was essentially 'unthinkable' and a 're-wire' totally unthinkable. I therefore just replaced the one damaged cable, put the floorboards back and got on with my life.
As I said before, damage of the type illustrated below is (for obvious reasons) not detectable by any sort of electrical 'testing' (the insulation resistance of that cable was, as one would expect, fine) and, indeed would not result in any problems' unless it was 'disturbed'.
If the possibility of a recurrent rodent problem is largely 'unavoidable' (no matter how many 'measures' one deploys) then, unless one puts all electrical cables (and plastic water pipes
) inside steel conduit or suchlike, then there really is not much one can do other than 'live with it'.
Indeed, if one's house is currently rodent free, but with an ongoing risk, then one doesn't know whether the blighters will re-appear tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or whenever - so if one wanted to be 'vigilant', I guess one would have to lift all the floorboards every week (or live without them and walk, carefully, on the joists
)
Kind Regards, John
