Termites

Here is a subject that I have gained great deal of first hand knowledge about:
The wonderful world of wood destroying pests. In nature, these creatures serve the needed purpose of breaking down wood products back into their base compounds which are mostly carbon dioxide, water, and a few other elements. Once the larger part of the wood has been broken down, bacteria and fungus complete the process. Without these insects, dead trees would take hundreds of years to decay and disappear.

Unfortunately, to a termite, wood is wood. In this case, the wood was a part of my timber framed house. I believe the termite infestation started when the dirt in the back of the house was improperly graded against the foundation too close to the wood siding. That is all they needed to gain entry and wreak havoc. The fact that this was a summer home meant that it went unnoticed for quite some time. That was followed by slip shod repairs. Today we find we are $30K less in the bank account and much wiser.

There were no active infestations when we purchased the house, so I assume that the house was treated at some point. We sprayed all exposed wood with TIMBOR which is a boric acid solution. Borates kill termites after they eat it. Carpenter ants and carpenter bees will not eat borate treated wood because it is unpallatable to them. Borates are safe for human contact unlike pressure treated lumber. The borate will leach out of the lumber if exposed to water so it is not meant to used in outdoor applications.

Other things that we did was to reduce the grade in the back of the house. Most construction codes call for a 12 inch clearance between the ground and any wood part of a structure. Normally this means that you will have at least 12 inches of concrete block showing. We had zero in several areas. I removed an uncountable number of wheal barrow loads to dirt to get it to 8 inches. You can also install an aluminum termite shield, which we still may do.

Here are some interesting termite facts from Wikipedia.org: Many people think they are cousins of the ants. Actually, they are more closely related to cockroaches. There are two main groups of termites, subterranean which live mostly below ground. They build hollow tubes out of wood cellulose to control the temperature and humidity. These little beasties build large nests often outside of the structure and commute to work every day. The second type is dry wood termites. They do not build tubes, instead they make there nest in the wood they are consuming.

Both types are vorascious eaters and large colonies can consume up to a pound of wood a day. They are social insects with female workers and soldiers carrying out all of the duties in each colony. They mate in the spring time (alates) when the female queens leave the nest and fly. The meet male termites in flight. After mating the male termites do not die as in ant colonies, but stay with the queen and continue to mate. Lots more information at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termites