Wood Pecker Damage

I believe this is most common, and the way it happened to me:

Carpenter bees first, then the wood peckers.

I would like to know what bugs are in it.

Greg

I'm not sure if there are any bugs. I read that wood peckers do this to be territorial. I did have ice dams 2 winters ago which of course will attract carpenter ants, but I havent seen any ants lately. I'm going to have a contractor repair the damage. I wonder if I should call my insurance company.

I have no wood pecker experience, but I read to put in mothballs where the carpenter bees make holes, then cover with plastic wood or maybe anything. I read this the day after I covered my holes w/o moth balls, but they never came back. I probably sprayed a bunch of them to death when I was patching the holes.

I had woodpeckers peck into my cedar shingle siding years ago, there were no insects or the house would be gone by now . I filled the holes with caulking and repainted over the patched area. They didn't come back.

Woodpeckers don't chew. They're not strong enough to cause the kind of damage you're describing.

Sounds like squirrels -- this is exactly the kind of thing they do. They typically get access to the upper parts of a house via overhanging trees or tall shrubs. You might need to do some serious tree-trimming.

I saw the woodpeckers, so I am sure itwas not squirrels. I filled the holes with ordinary caulking, used a knfe to make grooves to match the original texture, and then painted to match.

No trees near by. They were wood peckers. I'm thinking of using bondo for repair.

I'll say this. If you're able to paint afterwards, you don't have to use wood filler just because they are wood. It seems like that might be one of the compulsuive home repair commandments, but it's not.

I have no experience with those shingles and dont' know what woudl stick, be able to be given a nice edge, if the edge is visible,, etc. but there are lots of possibiilites, some in a caulking tube.

I thnk bondo would work just fine.

Think as a woodpecker does!?

In a case of unseen bugs or unseen evidence of bugs: You might aught to do= a thorough inspection for bugs, anyway. Woodperckers can hear bugs behind= tree bark, then dig after them, so an undamaged shingle is not necessarily= the woodpeckers concern or deciding factor. The bugs don't have to be vis= ible nor does their damage have to be visible.

On a sunny side of the house, cedar can crackle, a bit, as it expands when = heated by the sun, especially after a cool night. The woodpeckers may be r= esponding to this sound, also, so the territorial reasoning may not be a su= re thing, either.

Sonny