Are you getting ready for winter? While you're putting plastic on the windows, adding weather stripping and door sweeps, and skirting the house, consider some wildlife and pest prevention while you're at it. You'll lower your heat bill and keep the pests out at the same time.

1. Your roofline is a favorite entry point for squirrels, rodents, bats, and flying insects. Make this the year you have someone come over and patch those holes, and seal those frayed edges. You won't just be keeping the bugs and the mammals out, you'll be keeping the cold out as well. More importantly, you'll be keeping the heat in. Heat rises. When it gets to your attic, you want it to stay in--so it forms a buffer of warm air. This will keep the cold out.

2. Sealing windows with plastic is great, but cold can also get in around the edges of your windows. Once inside your wall voids, it can seep into your home. Using a caulking gun to seal around windows is a great way to keep the cold and bugs out. Do this to light fixtures and loose siding as well. Less cold in your walls, means more money in your pocket.

3. TAP insulation is a great way to go, if you want the most bang for your buck. This blown insulation has borates that kill bugs and prevent the spread of fire t hrough your wall voids and attic spaces. If you're looking for termite, ant, and rodent prevention, this will do the trick, and add a layer of insulation. That means your home will be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and kill the bugs and rodents too. You can't beat that with a stick!

4. Ants send scouts out to look for food sources and places to put colonies. Seal up the cracks in your foundation with liquid cement, to keep them from getting inside. This will also keep the heat from leaking out of your basement walls, before it has a chance to radiate up through your house. The foundation walls of your home are also a popular entry point for centipedes, earwigs, cockroaches, and termites. By taking the extra effort to seal it properly, you will be preventing these bugs from having access to your wall voids.

5. Poor gutters or broken downspouts can create problems that could cost you thousands to repair. Make sure your gutters channel water away from your hom e, so you don't have water near your foundation walls or on the wood of your house. Wet walls produce rotted areas for bugs and mammals to chew on, especially in hidden places, like under the porch or deck.

6. With your gutters fixed, it is time to look for rotted holes. You would be amazed at how fast insects will chew through the corner of a door frame, or gnaw a hole through your exterior wall, especially in a place that is hard to get at. Take a flashlight and look under your porch or under exterior stairwells. Pull up a few boards on your deck and examine your exterior wall. If you find rotted holes, use a caulking gun to fill them, until you can get those places properly fixed. Rotted wood is a pest invitation. Keep your home dry and keep these holes filled, to keep bugs out and the heat in.