Any suggestions on how to deal with a possible termite problem. Story below, sorry so long.
Ok, I have this nutty habit of picking up used tools. Love to see if I can fix them. Have gotten some great deals this way, and some other stuff.<G>
Yesterday, I bought a big storage box. It’s 4′ wide x 32″ deep x 2′ tall sitting on a metal frame. has a big front panel held on with a couple latches. The top and all the sides are covered with galvanized sheet metal. Thing weighs a ton. Just out of curiosity I open the front. Inside it has 3 rows of 5 drawers. The drawers are 3/4″ pine, and in really good shape. The drawers are on full-extension slides. A few of the bottom ones are a big tight due to wood swelling, some moisture problems have caused some minor damage and rot down on the very bottom. But, the drawers are clean looking wood, and there’s no serious damage.
Get it home and am taking the drawers out and cleaning them out. Mainly just a few cobwebs ect. Get distracted by the kids, don’t get back to it until after dark. Finish taking the drawers out (so it’s light enough I can move it), and put it in the garage. Am putting drawers back in, and notice something moving. Shine a flashlight in, and the very last drawer compartment is crawling with baby termites. Yuck, we almost never have termite problems in Idaho. Can’t figure out what to do, so finally I douse them with some wasp & hornet spray. Then I spend an hour with a big halogen light smashing anything I can find that’s moving. Once I think I’ve gotten them all, I move the cabinet outside. Spray a line of hornet killer around it, and scatter handfuls of diazanon around (only thing I’ve got to hand at 10PM). Stacked the drawers and did the same thing (after carefully examining each one). Finally can’t find anything moving. This morning, still no sign of any critters (about sugar ant size). Amazingly, I can find zero evidence of actual termite damage anywhere. Guess the adults just built the little mud bunkers and laid eggs in the box. Didn’t eat on it any.
Never had to deal with termites. Now, I want to move some firewood away from the house and spray (something) along the foundation in case I missed any.
Yuck, hate those nasty little bugs. Wish I’d pulled that drawer out when it was still light so I hadn’t taken it in the garage.
On a brighter note. I’m gonna build a stand for this with some roll out drawers underneath for big stuff, and make it my metalworking workbench. Mount my grinder & vise to it. Organize all the boxes of stuff scattered around the shop (electrical, plumbing, hinges, dowels, ect.) in the drawers. Once I find time anyway. Even with the bug problem, and some needed minor repair work to do, not a bad deal for $40.
The problems my bad habits get me into. Now I’ll be hunting for mud tunnels everytime I look at the house. Yuck.
Replies
first question is are they subterranian or air borne termites?
maybe need an entymoligist to tell.
if subteranian you may not have a big problem. they live in the ground and come "out" to feed. but they can't stand the light of day, because they will dry out.
only the swarms of new females can take open air for long.
they need a water source to survive,
if they are airborne, different story. don't know much about them. maybe called Formosan Termites.
sub terrainian are invasive/evasive in that they only need about 1/64th in to get thro. they want to stay in the dark hence the tunnels.
since you found them in the trunk, you may have brought them home.
if you can get one take it to an entymologist, pest control places usually have them on staff.
bobl Volo Non Voleo
Yeah, I brought them home. Now I want to make sure they all die. As quickly as possible. Gonna hunt for some spray at the store tonight and spray that entire area good. Fortunately, the chest was in the middle of the concrete, so I had pretty good hunting smashing moving bugs. Filled the one crack in the floor with wasp spray. Then moved it outside. Gonna treat the whole thing good and let it dry out real well before it comes inside. Also gonna replace the bottom wood runners (which have rotted some). If there are any leftover bugs, that's most likely where they're hiding. Gonna move it some at lunch time and point the bottom at the sun. Dry that sucker up good.
Did add a new project, well it moved up the list anyway, moving the woodpile away from the house, so it's not touching anywhere. Brick house with a foot or more of foundation wall exposed. If they try moving up the wall, it'll be obvious by the tunnels once the wood's out of the way.
Don't believe we have flying termites here. Not much trouble with them at all, though they do infect the occasional house. At least I don't live down south. I understand New Orleans is getting demolished by termites.
Good idea on the pest control place. Maybe I'll scrape some of the sprayed bugs off and find a pest place to see what they say.
> if they are airborne, different story. don't know much about them. maybe called Formosan Termites.
That's the kind we have here, they're called drywood termites. They don't make any mud tunnels because they live permanently inside the wood. They eat from the inside outward, so it's hard to tell if a piece has damage until it's severe. The treatment is to tent the building with tarps and fumigate with a gas called vikane.
-- J.S.
Fortunately, we don't have the airborne variety here. Too cold. Guess I'll just spray and hope for the best. Get some spray on the way home and keep my eyes open for the next few months.
Where do you live? I spent a couple years in Georgia. I'll take a few months of freezing weather anyday over having to deal with all the creepy crawlies year round. We get several months where we have almost zero bugs. No ants, no fire ants anytime, cockroaches are rare, very few termite troubles, no chiggers, ect.. I saw some of the tented houses there. Pretty intense process.
Amazingly, we almost bought an old house. Then found severe termite infestation right before we closed. Log house. The exterminators estimated thousands to treat, but no gaurantee because there was no way to tell if it was effective in the log homes. Banker and RE agent both told us it was the first time they'd ever seen or heard of a house sale falling through due to termites in this area. Nobody around here had a tent, that's what the house really needed, but you'd have had to pay thousands to rent one and ship it in and back.
I think they sold the house, but not sure how they worked it out.
We're in Los Angeles. It never freezes, but the bug problem isn't usually too bad. If your termites are like ours, just spraying the outside won't help. It would be like using a shotgun against a battleship. The bugs are deep inside the wood. Best to find someone local who really knows the extermination business and can id your insects.
-- J.S.
You're right, desert type climates aren't nearly as bad with bugs. It's the humid areas that really seem to have problems with them. Maybe I'm just too sensitive.
Guess I should scrape up some corpses and see if I can find an exterminator to look at them. One problem of living in a small town. Just looked, all the exterminators are located in a town about 1/2 hour drive away. There is one guy in town that lists a phone# only, but probably just someone who works out of his house.
I know they must be termites, though they look like ants, because I found some mud tubes attatched to a drawer. The tubes were empty. Just short little chambers withgs in them. I think these were egg sacks that opened. Hopefully before I got them home, and I just got a few leftovers. Tried searching and found lots of picts of mud tubes ect, but couldn't find these. Seems to me these are the most identifying info I have on these critters.
Oh well, guess you can't win them all. Gonna spray around the area for termites and see if I can figure out what these bugs are exactly.
On a really brighter note. I also picked up a pressure washer (same place, same time) that has a 2 HP Baldor 110VAC motor driving it. Looks barely used. Last night I was able to get it working. Found a couple easily fixed problems great deal for $50.
Here are a few links:
http://www.utoronto.ca/forest/termite/term_kal.htm
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7415.html#IDENTIFICATION
When we lived in the SF Bay Area our house had airborne termites. Probably had em for years. I freaked when I saw one in the attic and then found all the frass. Called several pest control companies and all wanted to tent and gas for big bucks. I then called the county entimologist and he said don't tent. Tenting will kill many but not all and the potential damage to your roof is not worth it. He recommended I get a pest control person who would spray local to the infestation. But most of all he suggested to find the source of water in the attic and fix it. Bottom line is they need water to survive. In your case I wouldn't worry unless you have leaky pipes inside your walls or other damp wood. Moving the wood pile is a great idea.
bit
You're probably right. Evidence of the cabinet is there is one bottom corner that has been consistently damp for a long time. There were quite a few oddball plumbing components scattered through the drawers, so was probably used at one of the local plumbing outfits. Must have been located under a drip.
I made sure to get the cabinet good and wet last night. Of course I mixed in liberal doses of insecticide with the water, so they may not appreciate it much. Today's the 2nd day of setting it in the sun. Found 3-4 live ones yesterday when I moved a drawer slide, but they weren't nearly as fast as they were the night before.
As far as I know I have no water leakage problems anywhere. Gonna move the woodpile, since I needed another project so bad, and spray along the walls in the garage just as a precaution, too many other bugs anyway. I'll inspect the wood real close as I move it. The only wood that should be damp is the logs on the bottom. The pile gets several hours of direct sun a day, so usually even the bottom logs are bone dry.
Hope your problem cleared up well. Curious why tenting would damage a roof. I'd always heard that was the only sure way to kill them all. Killing some is pointless, unless it's the Queen, she makes eggs by the thousands.
> Curious why tenting would damage a roof. I'd always heard that was the only sure way to kill them all. Killing some is pointless, unless it's the Queen, she makes eggs by the thousands.
The roof risk in tenting is that the guys who walk around up there to do it are usually just day laborers, not particularly knowledgeable or careful about roofing and leaks. The little bonus of tenting is that they'll usually leave you half a dozen nice spring clamps on the roof and in the shrubbery.
It's still the best way to get rid of drywood termites, which are the kind where the queen lives up inside the wood of the building. When I had it done, the guarantee was that they'd do it again if I found live termites within two years, I think that's pretty standard. The risk they're taking on that guarantee is that a new colony will be established by bugs that fly in from a nearby building within two years.
Keeping water out of the building is essential to controlling termites and dry rot. It's necessary, but if you have bugs, not sufficient. You do have to kill them.
-- J.S.
Hey Billy
Did you get the shed from a southern state? If your in Utah, all you have to do is wait for freezing weather. Here in Southern California, termites are here, all over the place. It hardly ever freezes around here, but in the mountains, they cant survive the freezing cold.
Gordon
Move to minnesota,
it's too cold for'em here...
Good thing it's too cold for them there. You could feed several million termites for years just out of your woodlot. Not to mention that timberframed mansion you're building.
Hey, see ya in a couple weeks. I'll leave the termites home.
sawmills set, times is firming up. gettin' some interest here. lookin forward to good times..
Sawmill's expecting us eh. Better warn them if some of these guys are bringing semi's or U-hauls or something. What other times are firming up? Be nice if some more folks show.
See ya then.
Billy
thought it'd be fair if I notified them,..
Connie's a real nice guy to work with so I knew it would be no problem.. (ask him about the time a 2x4 went right thru his gut,, tore off part of his kidney and everything.. he said he remembers being brought into the emergency room and saw that the two by four was wider than the door frame but he was too weak to warn them.....
Owch!!!
anyway, he's got a serious shot gun in case any of you get out of line..
I'll know exactly what wood he'll have available before everyone comes.. Just remember green wood is heavy.
white oak weighs 6 pounds per bd.ft. and evan pine weighs around 4.6 pounds.. thus a thousand bd.ft. is 6000 pounds or so.
so far I have about a dozen people interested but only 4 guys are certain..
You're 2x4 story gives me shudders. But, having seen how fast the sawmill I toured spit those things out, I can see where it could happen.
4-12 guys. Wow, that's more then I'd have ever figured likely. Shaping up to be a first rate party.
See ya there.
there is however no entertainment director and I'm looking for a likely candidate..
the job entails making sure we all have fun.. if we fail to have fun then I can blame the entertainment director..
if no one volenteers, I'll be forced to appoint someone.. ;-)
I see a setup here.
First you tell me you know nothing about doing this kind of thing.
Now you want to appoint an Entertainment Director.
Gees. And I thought you were no good at this. Now you want to create organization. Of course, if the Director get to pick out the color of the tablecloths. . . . I might be interested.<G>
Wood, power tools, later some steaks on the barby and some beer for those who want it, what's to plan? See who shows up, take up a collection, hit the store and pick up beverages and some food on the way back from the lumber mill.
We'd best set a firm rule though. Anyone who's drank a 12 pack or more of beer will be banned from power tool use.<G> We'll let them run the controls on the forklift while you work on your roof, just to keep them out of trouble.
actually I was thinking the color of the table cloths shoulfd match the clothes they are wearing.. (ie, use their laps as place settings) and iffan' those sissy's want to wipe the goo offen' der mouths, let 'em use their sleave like any proper construction worker!
I do agree we must make firm rules after 12 beers in an hour they can't use the power tools and should operate the forklift instead..
I suppose there will be those who only drink 11 beers in an hour but still feel capable of running the power tools, what's your opionion?
Oh and if someone gets a little too biligerant we'll just have him go fishing. We'll give him his own anchor to wrap around his ankles so he can quickly sink to the bottom of the lake where all the fish are..
I doon know about taking a collection after the sawmill though.. I can never leave there with money in my pockets,, of course maybe none of you suffer from my addiction ..
PS,
the director is certainly capable of appointing an assistant director to perform ... ah himmmmm,.... certain tasks??
Well, if the sawmill was only 1 hour from my house, I'd have a problem leaving there with any money either. Since I have to limit myself because of weight, it won't be such a problem. But, you're probably right, money collection should come before we leave for the sawmill. Some of these other guys may bring some serious rigs and have no real limits on how much wood they can carry off.
Now, my wife leaving that massive mall with any money might be another story.<G>
I thought anyone who limited themselves to 11 beers would count as the designated driver. Why would power tools be a problem?
well,
once you see some of these tools in action, you'll understand why they aren't imported into the united states..
I mean the groove cutter's nick name is death machine, and the chain morticer is nastier...
However I think if you were drunk the blades whipping around would sober you up quickly. that or the volume of chips flying may give you a moment to step back..
As for the Mall of America and your wife, good luck.. The wife of a politician (republican as it happens) was arrested for excessive shopping... Her only problem was failure to stop and pay for things as she left...
She claimed it was because her husband ignored her.... Chances are like all politicians (both parties) they are trained to ignore all but major campaign donaters...
Do you know how much weight you can safely carry with that trailer yet? figure about 4 pounds per bd.ft. for the dry stuff and 6 pounds for green wood.. should give you a small safety margin.
If you mill the boards to 3/4 inch (surfacing both sides) and then surface one edge you can figure about three quarters of that..
Well, my wife won't shoplift. She's compulsively honest.
I've seen pictures of a couple of your tools. Pretty intense machines. If they're not sold in the US, where'd you get them?
I figure about 1000 lbs. is what I'll shoot for. I've done much more then that, but not pulling it with a car, and not for such long distances. Hauled cinderblocks with it once. Several trips. About a 4' x 8' x 2' stack. Over 1 ton of blocks if I've figured right. But, that was only a few miles, and pulling it with a Suburban.
Still need to get the hitch finished installed and take some test drives to work out any wiring or other bugs.
Was gonna do that Saturday, but got real sick this weekend and spent most of it in bed. Wish that's where I was now, but too much work to try and get done before I leave for a week.
We'd promised to take the kids camping, and did, but it was a challenge to make it through due to not feeling well. Still fun, just a challenge. Wife and I think we'll do a bit of camping on this trip too. Just eat out and sleep in a tent somewhere. Save some money, it's fun, and that way we don't have to haul too much camping gear. Maybe I'll start out hauling a bit of firewood with me.
If I could surface the boards at your place, that'd help tons. Particularly if I can still buy some of your dry wood. Then I should be able to take back a pile about 4' x 8' x 10" That'd be pushing things far enough. Green wood I'd only get half as much, and I probably wouldn't want to surface undried wood, would I?
Anyway, see you next weekend. I'll look forward to it.
Well dry wood is about 4 pounds and wet is about 6 pounds so you'll get about 25% more dry than wet.. (varies a bit depending on what type of wood) I just carried back 600 bd.ft. of tamarck and the pickup didn't evan squat.. that much in green oak would have the headlites aimed at the stars and the back tires just about flat, whereas the same in eastern white pine would be lighter still!
I've surfaced green wood and had it OK, (you'll probably want to sand it a bit once it dries completely) I've got a few timbers for you to check out that were fresh milled when green.
Never suggested your wife would do such a thing, heck! she's not married to a politician. <G> On the other hand she might do some serious damage to the wood budget <G>
I'd give some serious thought to that fiddle back maple evan if it is green.. I'd also think about some black walnut. (I really like the contrast between woods) Now those are heavy woods and to lighten things up a bit, probably some boxelder if I wanted some bold wood. Talk to your wife about the things she'd like you to make and the kind of wood to use with it..
I wish I knew what fiddleback maple was. Sounds like a nice grain pattern though. Been leaning towards maple, but most of it has no grain to speak of, and is pretty boring.
What I want to do is some trim around our master bedroom. A corner display cabinet. Some decorative shelves. And, a bedroom set (bed, dresser, and bedside table or two. Gonna start with the trim and shelves. Then do the corner cabinet. Then the bed. Then a dresser. Kind of try to ease into things.
All the cabinets in our house are oak. Would kind of like something different in the bedroom. I've just always wanted to build some furniture. Haven't done anything like that since highschool, but I think I'm capable. May have to come back for another load of wood to fix the mistakes I make with the first batch though.<G>
Maple, Walnut, and Box Elder. I'll just have to see. Don't really know what box elder or tamarak looks like. Do like woods with distinctive grain patterns though.
As far as the wood budget. My wife's already limited things pretty well by insisting on what outfit we drive out there. Oh well, only have so much storage room right now anyway.
Just found some pictures of fiddleback maple on the web. Looks really nice. You said earlier you wouldn't share that for anything. Does the lumber yard have some available? If so, what sort of money does it go for? I need to find a good site that shows pictures of different wood grains. Any suggestions?
The site I found was for some laminations for sell. Still haven't found a picture of tamarack. Will look more later. I need to get a better idea of what I'm after before I get there. Appreciate all the descriptions you've given.
Catch ya later.
Bill
Yes they have about 1500 bd.ft. that they will sell @$4.00 a bd.ft. (I asked them to hold it rather then sending it off to their wholesalers.
the stuff I have I thought was all they had, when they found the rest of the tree with it , they saved it out for me, but I'm trying to use my will power to keep from blowing my budget..
May as well take their's. it's just as dry as the stuff I put up and will save me the work of having to carry it up and resticker it..
Tamarck is an orange and cream wood with very vivid contrast between rings in the heartwood.. It can be very wild looking and is extremely colorful. The juvinle wood however is cream colored and not as interesting.
$4 a board foot sounds like an awesome price for that. The few websites I found with fiddleback maple for sell catered to instrument makers. One had a 1/2" thick board that was probably about 8-10 bd. ft. for $128. Plain maple runs $6 and up here.
The few tiny pictures I could find looked fascinating. I wonder if it'd be way to busy as furniture? Maybe used as trim around regular maple, or as drawer fronts. Less is more sometimes. Using it to accent things, rather then building the entire piece out of it. I think I will pick up a few of those boards and try to fit them in somewhere.
1500 bd. ft. huh? You just have to ask yourself what you'd do with that much wood anyway. That's enough to do a lot of fairly large projects all by itself. Sounds like they know you though, they're gonna hold onto it for awhile just to tempt you.<G>
Tamarak, I just have to see. Went to the local college last night and looked through a book on identifying wood. Unfortunately, most of the info was of little use, but there were some good pictures. The tamarack they showed looked interesting, but hard to tell. One picture of butternut looked fascinating, the one next to it like pine. No pictures of Box Elder, which you'd mentioned. I'm sure somewhere there's a site that has lots of good pictures of different types of wood, but so far I've missed it, though some of the instrument sites showed a few different types.
I want to get a fair variety, but also actually use it to build something. Too many people stockpile such things and never build anything. Why I'm deliberately piling up more projects? Probably my own physcological defect, ranking right up there with your wood addiction.
Carefull now son,
wood addiction starts with the , "well I could build......"
and then you look at the attending cost ,you suddenly scale down the build idea.. when you chance upon an oppertunity too good to pass up you suddenly pounce..
addiction begins when every deal is too good to pass up..
I really like complex woods like burls and fiddle back.. I'd much rather build using that then straight grained wood (well you'll notice that when you look at the timbers in my place) straight grain woods are easier to build because you don't have to work so hard to incorporate that particular grain pattern in or find a way to feature something really special in the right spot..
It's kind of a multi demensional puzzle and a lot of of fun if you like the task.
I've seen fiddle back used as whole boards in stuff and some of the uniqueness wears off. on the other hand nothing is worse than needing three more feet of something and not having it.. better too much than too little.. what you don't use for one project goes into the next and the scraps become jewery boxes.. those scraps become chess boards and so on ..
At least if you get me addicted. . . . . we could start a support group.
yeh but where would the meetings be held? Not here that's for certain, it'd be like holding AA meetings in a bar..
We'll trade off. Your meetings can be held at the bar, and AA can be held at your house. AA folks can use your addiction to help them overcome theirs. While you're recovering they'll slowly diminish your wood stash while they develop a new hobby to help keep them away from booze.
Win Win.
Oh, you're not allowed to start drinking so you can attend the AA meetings.<G>
It sounds like you had subterranean termites because of the mud tubes. We have loads of them here in California's central valley. They live underground in a colony, kind of like ants. There is a queen that produces eggs to keep the colony alive. The rest are workers. They crawl through the ground and find dead wood to eat and bring back to the colony.
They cannot survive exposure to light very long. But some of the best eating is above ground - like in a house. So they build a tunnel of mud when they want to get to something above ground.
Wood to earth contact is the thing to avoid. It sounds like your storage box was probably kept someplace where the termites could easily access it with a tunnel or two. I doubt the termites were babies. Adult termites are smaller than ants. They were probably just adult termites doing their job.
Moving the box stopped the contact so you won't have any new termites to contend with. Even if you hadn't used insecticide on the box, the termites that were in it would have died because they can't live long without returning to the colony. Kind of like the Borg!
With all the spraying you've done, you've undoubtably wiped them out. Get the box good and dry and store it up off the floor in the future. It takes several years for termites to do serious damage. That log house had probably been infested for decades.
As you can probably tell, I've battled termites myself over the years and undone a lot of damage they had caused. Here in Sacramento they are always present; we just try to keep them out in the yard where they belong. It's pretty easy to know if you have them around your property. One of the first nice, warm spring days you'll suddenly notice swarms of brown flying ants. They're not ants. Declare war!
"A completed home is a listed home."
Fortunately, we don't get flying termites here. Would hate to have to deal with those things. I've had many times the normal contact with termites and houses. This is twice for me, most people in this area never get once.
The log house, I was much younger, and knew nothing about termites. Saw some mudtubes downstairs behind the furnace that the home inspector had missed. Didn't know what they were. Asked my FIL. He didn't know either.
There was a list of items that had to be done before we could get an FHA loan on the house. Had no extra money, so worked out a deal: I'd do the work, they'd buy the materials.
One of the first things was provide access under the 3/4 of the house w/o a basement. This meant cut a access hole in the closet and dig it out to 18" deep. Worked my wifes family real good that day. Took forever to get to where more then 1 person could get under the house, then it opened up and went fast.
Found a 2nd hole had to be cut to access an addition. Cut it, and the plywood floor there was Swiss Cheese. Time for exterminator. Bank saw his report and said they wouldn't loan on the house.
Scares me that I almost bought the house even after seeing mudtubes because I didn't know any better.
Of course the realtor also didn't tell us the vacant lot next door was gonna turn into a dumpy trailer park in a couple months, though her company sold the land for that very purpose. We'd have never been able to sell that place. There are now eight 20-30 yr. old trailers next door. Really dodged a bullet on that one.
try to find a company in your area that deals with antiques. They should be able to line you up with someone to fumigate what you have. Out here in SoCal, they use a Boron spray method that actually suffocates them critters.
Good suggestion. I don't think I'd spend a lot of money on this item. Though it will work well for what I'm trying to do. Fortunately, I think I killed the buggers. No more signs of them. About ready to move it inside, isolated, and start getting it ready to use.
Now I've just got to keep a close eye out in case I'm wrong. Which never happens, just ask my wife.<G>