| By Greg Vanden Berge
It's kind of hard to imagine that a little gopher can destroy a large
concrete patio with massive tunneling. These little buggers will tunnel
everywhere looking for food like plant roots. Now you're probably
wondering why are they under your concrete patio slab if there aren't
any flowers planted anywhere near there.
Well there busy looking for plants and this in turn
leads them underneath your patio or concrete walkways. In their search
for food these guys can do some serious damage and can definitely move a
lot of dirt. These guys are mini earth movers.
To give you an idea one time I drained a built in
swimming pool with over 15,000 gallons of water into one gopher hole. I
know what you're thinking come on that couldn't possibly have happened.
I'm here today to tell you that it did happen.
I had gophers on both sides of the yard tunneling
under the pool decking as well as the concrete patio. I pumped every
bit of the pools water into the gopher hole at the same time walking
around looking over my neighbors fence for Old Faithful. I was
expecting to see a small river flowing into my neighbors yards but never
seen it.
The concrete over time developed cracks and some
settling. There are some spots where the concrete has actually heaved
up and needs to be replaced soon around the pool decking. There are
some spots around the pool decking that are sinking and there is a good
chance the gophers have caused this damage also.
Eventually the patio slab and pool decking will
have to be replaced along with some new fill dirt brought in to raise
the backyard back to its original condition. Over the years I have
removed concrete patios and sidewalks that needed to be repaired from
extensive gopher mining. Don't under estimate these guys.
If you have gopher holes around the perimeter of
your concrete sidewalks or patios try to remove them as soon as
possible.
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