The hardware an exclusion job is made of.

These aren't off-the-shelf add-ons bought in and bolted on. Most of them are cut, bent and fabricated for the opening they have to cover, because no two rooflines fail in quite the same place. This is the hardware an exclusion job is actually made of.

Ridge guard

Powder-coated steel hardware cloth, custom fabricated to fit over both sides of your ridge vent. It closes the single seam animals use most — squirrels, raccoons, bats and birds all work the ridge line — and it stiffens the vent itself at the same time.

Roof vent guard

A steel cage fitted over box and turbine vents. The airflow the vent was installed for is untouched; the way in is closed.

One-way door

The device that lets an animal leave under its own power and gives it nothing to climb back into — so nobody has to handle it. Built by hand for the opening it has to cover, which is why it seals rather than roughly fits.

Dig defense

A stainless steel barrier set about twelve inches into the ground to stop animals burrowing underneath a structure — groundhogs and foxes especially. It goes in along sheds, sidewalks, driveways and porches, and once the ground settles you don't see it.

Photo: National Park Service — public domain (US federal work)

Critter barrier

Powder-coated hardware cloth, most often around decks and sheds, buried twelve to eighteen inches down. Where dig defense stops the diggers, this stops everything — down to snakes and mice.

Gutter guards

Fabricated to fit your gutters, whatever size they are. Keeping the run clear is exclusion work in its own right: packed gutter debris is what makes a roofline worth nesting in.

Bird barrier

Hardware cloth fitted behind the soffit panels, so nothing can break through the soffit and get up into the attic. Birds are the usual culprit — a soffit panel is thin, and once one is pushed or pecked open the whole attic is available — but the same barrier stops squirrels and rodents using the route. It sits out of sight behind the finished surface, so the roofline looks exactly as it did before.

Drip edge

Installed along the roofline to close the gaps under the shingles and above the rake and fascia boards — a thin, continuous opening that most homeowners never know is there.

Custom metal

Bent on site to cover gaps in roof returns, gaps in trim boards, and holes in rake and fascia boards. This is the piece that has no catalogue number, and it's usually what the job actually needed.

Full metal wraps

Exterior woodwork wrapped in metal from end to end. It stops animals chewing at the wood and stops the weather getting into it, which means the repair doesn't quietly become the next entry point in five years.

Foundation exclusion

The gap between your foundation and your siding, closed with aluminum trim coil, hardware cloth or sealant depending on what the gap is. This is the one that deals with rats, mice and snakes.