Termite Prevention

[Valdo]

Does anyone know if there are DIY termite prevention treatments available?  We're going to live in Charente-Maritime (17) where I understand termites ARE a problem.  We haven't got any in the house but would like to do our best to stop them getting in, if at all possible as the place is nothing but wood.

Does anyone know as well if being really near to the water (and a very high water-table) is more of a risk or a godsend for/against termites (and capricorns while we're at it)?

Thanks

Valerie

 

[PossumGirl]

We don't have termites where we are now, but we lived in Los Angeles for almost thirty years.  The situation there was: Every house in Southern California either has termites, had termites or will have termites.  It's unavoidable.

There were two kinds the "dry" wood type and the subterranean type.  Nothing can stop the dry wood type.  They fly/get blown by the wind and wind up on a tasty bit of wood. The problem is that they can be in your house for up to five or six years before you actually notice them when they shovel their droppings out of a little hole in the wood. It looks like some weird dark brown/black roundish sawdust.

The subterraneans can get to any unprotected bits of wood that come in contact with the earth, so the best way to avoid those is to not have direct wood to earth contact.  They need water, so if there are wet places under or around your house, that is a real attraction to them.  We had several different kinds of system there, and I don't know if they've made it over here, but you can check it out.

First, the old, traditional system was a chemical barrier placed around the outside perimeter of your house. This needed to be done so as not to leave any gaps wider than 1/16th of an inch that the nasty beasts coud get through. Also, if you later dug up any soil in the area, the barrier was pretty much ruined.

The newest system is a series of stakes that get placed around the perimeter of your house with a tasty wood filling inside a plastic container. The termites, being basically junk-food addicts, go for that soft, tasty wood before they go for your house.  The stakes get inspected periodically and if you see that there is termite activity, a poison bait (poisonous to termites, not mammals and birds) is put in the stake.  They munch on the bait then take it back home for distribution. This has the advantage of eventually wiping out the whole colony.

You might want to see if there's a pest control company near you offering anything like this.

Sorry, that may have been more than you wanted to know about termites.

PG

[Ron Avery]

D-I-Y treatment against capricorn in boards and to some extent beams, YES. Xylephene can be brushed or pressure sprayed onto boards or beams.  In beams it only soaks about 25mm into hard wood but will get to the capricorn which tend to go for the bark wood.

D-I-Y against termites NO. The only effective treatment against termites in a high risk area such as yours is high pressure injection not spray, into your beams, (it is a high risk area because there are already termites and it is both warm and damp).  The area of wood vulnerable to termites is the ends where contact is made with the walls, the termites enter through the end grain  leaving no visible evidence of attack,  so you don't know you have them until your beam falls apart or you stick a screwdriver through it and find no middle left. 

If you do a search  on this you will see threads where some will tell you that you can treat termites yourself and prevent infection in beams using a paint sprayer or garden sprayer, but quite frankly they are kidding themselves and its not their house that is at risk. Gert some quotes from a wood treatment company, any reputable ones will do a survey without obligation.  Just as a matter of interest, how do you know you don't have termites already?

[Kitty]

We bought a house knowing that it had termites.  The reduction in sale price was considerable - about 50,000 euros.  The treatment has been fine and cost about 3,000 euros plus the building works needed after the treatment, some of which we decided to do as a precaution.  All the wooden floors were pulled up and replaced with concrete, which I thought was a good idea anyway (see below).  The termites hadn't got into the door frames or window frames so we didn't have to replace those, even though we thought that we have to.  Obviously if they had got into the roof space, we wouldn't have bought the house.

One of the most important things that you can do is to make sure that there is a membrane between the ground and any wood.  So door frames, for example, must have a barrier at ground level.  We arranged for a builder to cut off the bottom 6 inches of all the wooden pillars of an unaffected lean-to to be replaced with a metal base pad (available in all DIY stores).

I think that termites are so serious a problem that I would advise against a DIY chemical job.  We had the advantage of having an empty property.  The chemicals that they used were very fierce and it was recommended that we didn't go into the house for 2 weeks.

Termites do not like hard wood and so another idea is to replace any soft wood that has contact with the ground with hard wood.  You should also be very careful with wooden floors - the French build them directly onto the soil and not dwarf walls like the British system, so termites can enter your property very easily.

[Valdo]

Is the survey report you get when buying the house not good enough?  I know it's no guarantee that you won't get any in the future (hence my post) but surely I assumed it meant there were none there at the time of buying. Isn't that the whole point of them?

[Dave&Olive]

hi

               just for info once your house in france has termites it goes on the register...... and you will never get it removed !!!!!!!

              dave

[Tresco]

Do a search here using user name 'Athene'.

She has a house in 17 and knows a bit about termites too.

[Kitty]

Valdo

I am a chartered surveyor and you try not to miss things - in fact, you tend to err on the side of caution and mention more things.  However, termites are easy to miss as other postings have said.

All the surveys on the two French houses that I was involved with were comprehensive as far as asbestos, termites etc were concerned.  The current house that I bought had two surveys on it (done more or less at the same time) - one finding more termites than the other so I am a little suspicious of their quality.

If you have been given a clean bill of health, fine, but don't be complacent and keep an eye out for signs of the 'little blighters'.  The Bordeaux termite company that I dealt with will come out free of charge so perhaps others will do so as well.  The company did a fair bit of 'damage' to both houses that I was involved with - lifting slates, digging penknifes into wood etc so be aware that could happen.

A few termites were uncovered when the treatment was being done and they look like very small white wood lice.  However, it is unusual to see them.

So make doubly sure that you have no wood in contact with the ground and then sleep easy...