Spray Foam Insulation and Carpenter Ants
jeeppilot
| Posted in General Discussion on
I built my timberframe house about seven years ago. Wishing to build something that I would live in for the rest of my life, I spared little expense on technology, systems, materials, etc. Included in the construction was sprayed in polyurethane foam insulation. I’m now beginning to regret the choice. It seems that I now have a huge carpenter ant infestation and in talking to the local exterminators, the ants not only love the foam but are almost impossible to eradicate once established there. Can anyone corroborate the exterminator’s claims? Does anybody have a similar problem that they’ve been successful in treating? If so, what did you do to get rid of them? Any help would be appreciated as I’m nearly at my wits end. Thanks in advance.
Replies
jeep... i wouldn't dispair
here is a great article on tracking and killing carpenter ants
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/DK1015.html
it sounds to me like you've been talking to exterminators that don't care about your problem... or they don't have enough experience with carpenter ants
i don't use untreated foam for the very reason you're discussing
we only use foams treated with borates
but still..... after you read the articel.. i think you'll have a better handle on how to defeat the little bastids
make sure there are no moisture sources
no food sources
find the nest ( the satelite nest in your house and the main nest that they are moving back and forth from )
after you get rid of the nest create a perimeter around your house and keep them outside of that perimter
I know of one (EIFS) house where the entire exterior cladding AND foam was removed to get rid of the ants.
Jeff
the ants aren't after the foam, they're after wet wood, find that and then you can deal with the ants .. check flashing, caulking all the obvious things then start thinking about what's going on in the walls where you see them the most, how/where is the water/condensation coming from ..
Oh they LOVE foam for tunneling - seen it many times.
The previous owner of our house didn't know how to handle them - in one case they chewed horizontally around 6 feet through (very DRY) white oak flooring (!)
Jeff
Edited 6/17/2009 8:22 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
there's the distinction, tunneling yes, but they are only tunneling to get to the wet wood (ant food) ..
That's a mistaken impression - they do NOT eat wood at all.
They are just as happy staying in foam tunnels and ignoring wet or dry wood since the foam is easier to tunnel.
Jeff
Jeff,
So ants don't need a food supply? I suspect you are wrong, the reason they eat wood is for the sugars in the wood. Toss a pine board on a carpenters ant site and see if they don't eat it..
I know what they eat and it isn't wood - you're thinking of termites. Carpenter ants can't digest the cellulose in wood.
Jeff
Edited 6/17/2009 9:42 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
frenchy... if you read the link i gave, you'd know that ants don't eat wood
they tunnel and live in it
and they much prefer tunneling and living in foam.... just like youMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I am reading this thread and thinking about the new soy based foams.....Seems like soy would be much more attractive to ants than poly-based foam. What if you sprinkled borate salt like Borax on the bottom plates and sill plates before spraying in foam? BTW: Carpenter ants DO NOT eat wood.DC
When it was a concern I'd spray the framing with Bora-care prior to insulating.
i've used Bora-Care on old houses with damp basements
( no PT)
i think the last time i bought it paid $125 / gallon
yikes !Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
You rich island folk an afford that.Us poor mainlanders buy it for about $75 a gallon. Still worthy of a "Yikes!"
How far does a gallon go? i.e. How much of an area can you treat with a gallon? Do they "rate" it in square feet or lineal feet?Thanks in advance.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
been awhile... but if i remember it depends on wether you dilute it at 1 - 1 or 2- 1
the rate depends on the application ( per the directions )
so you get either 2 gallons or 4 gallonsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
OK, but how much wood surface area does that cover?Thanks Mike.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
i'd just be guessing.....200 sf /gal ?
bet if you google "Bora Care".......might find some spec sheets
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Edited 6/18/2009 8:35 pm ET by MikeSmith
Just like paint, you'll get about 350-400 sqft of coverage per gallon.Do realize that the Boracare in the jug is a concentrate, you mix it 50/50 with water to get a sprayable solution. Or you can brush it. I always sprayed.So a gallon of concentrate should get you around 700-800 sqft of coverage.
"What if you sprinkled borate salt like Borax on the bottom plates and sill plates before spraying in foam?"
The BoraCare spray would make more sense. What I did was to sprinkle boric acid powder in each stud bay. However, the foam comes out under significant pressure. In discussing this with the applicator he was able to reduce pressure at the base of each bay to accomodate the powder - but, a spray that would then dry leaving no residue would be better than powder.
Jeff
Or you can simply have borate added to the foam..
Have some Bora care for sale from A BIG job works wonders so far
Mike,
I saw an odd site, several weeks ago. During a city sponsored cleanup around the lake homes, I saw one fellow drive up to dump some junk and soaker hose...
I happened to be close to where he pulled up and saw that as the guy pulled out a medium duty wheel barrow and several hundred feet of soaker hose, Carpenter Ants were crawling everywhere...No telling how many were left in his SUV. The wheel barrow was old, but it had a couple of years left in it ... ;>) There were so many ants crawing all over it, I couldn't bring myself to take it home... The guy said he was throwing away so much soaker hose because as they lay coiled up, the ants eat holes into the hoses and live in them....
Another indicator: If you have Carpenter Ants, check the soaker hoses that are usually near the house foundation!!
Bill ;>)
If they ate the wood, they wouldn't be called carpenter ants, but rather something like beaver ants. ;o)
Too bad you didn't buy AFM panels they have borate added to the foam and the OSB is treated for resistance.
By the way they don't use spray foam in most panels, they are built with block foam and pressure laminated together.
I had a carpenter ant problem for several years after building. Exterminators were no use whatsoever.
So I did some research, bought several tubes of MaxForce Gel and knocked them out of my house in one season. That was several years ago, they've never returned.
Two colonies of Carpenter ants moved into the foam insulating my rim joists. It takes a while, but you can get rid of them. At any time 10% of the colony leave the nest to gather food. You can either give them bait to kill the queen, or keep killing the 10% until every last one of them is dead. Given that the average colony is around 2000 ants, and that they become dormant in the winter, completely eliminating them can take several seasons.
No house I build here in the PNW forest will ever have any foam in it if I can help it.
Edit: I spent part of yesterday replacing tiles in a bathroom of a house where Carpenter ants had eaten wide pathways in the plywood underlayment - completely ignoring the 1"x6" shiplap subfloor below. Tiles just began sinking like they had been laid on an ancient Indian burial ground. I hate ants.
Edited 6/16/2009 11:46 pm ET by fingersandtoes
We have had a few problems with carpenter ants. We ended up finding a "mother ship" nest outside near the foundation and the nests in the house were just satellite nests.
I suspect they still need to live in the dirt for part of their lives.
They do build a little nest just about anywhere tho.
They were never actually in wood. One in a coffee maker, one in our water bed and one in a big plastic diskette box along with the places you would suspect (any secluded dark spot). We caught them swarming next to the foundation one morning and dispatched them there with a bucket of something nasty. The rest were gone shortly after that.
We were successful in getting rid of carpenter ants and fire ants, then the little black ants showed up and we have been battling them ever since. (a truce exists right now but I expect them back)
At this point I am thinking the fire ants were not really all that bad ;-)