Drywood Termite Treatment Options

hi this is guy i've been doing pest control for many years now and i have been licensed in several states well i'm not licensed anymore because i'm retired now but given that many people need to save money these days i have decided that i would share ways that i learned over the years on how you can do your own pest control effectively safely and most importantly inexpensively i will answer any question for anybody anytime about any pest for free even if i do not have a video on the particular pest in question my goal is to save people money so if you find this video helpful please share it with someone you know who may also need to save a buck on pest control also if you like what i do and you'd like to see more of my videos then please click that subscribe button and don't forget to click that little bell next to it so that you'll get notified when i have another video published now if you really like my videos then please show me a little love and click on that like button as well okay today we are going to talk about your treatment options if you have a dry wood termite infestation now if you are familiar with my videos then you know they are typically not short but i am thorough and i intend to be thorough in this video as well because i want to make sure that you have all the information you need to make the right decision for you okay before we talk about your treatment options let's make sure that you actually do have dry wood termites if you know for sure that you have dry wood termites then you can go ahead and just you know skip to the treatment options now the first thing you should know about dry wood termites is that here in the united states they only live in certain areas of the country that is because they enjoy warm tropical weather have a look at this map if you are not in the red area then you most likely do not have dry wood termites and you can pretty much stop watching this video right now that is of course unless you want to watch it simply for entertainment value however if listening to me talk is your idea of entertainment then i think it might just be time for you to i don't know maybe expand your horizons a little anyway termite swarmers are kind of a reddish color and they have four wings of equal length so if you live in the red area on the map and if you are seeing these guys laying around either inside or outside or you see their wings then it is quite possible that you do have a dry wood termite infestation now just because you do not see dry wood termite swarmers or their wings that may be laying around inside your house or outside your house this does not mean that you do not have an infestation to make sure you should also do an inspection of the home now this is something that i cover in depth in my video on how to treat dry wood termites yourself and i will place a link in the description and also a link at the end of this video to make it easier for you to find okay now that you definitely know that you have dry wood termites let's consider your treatment options your first option is to hire a company to tent and fumigate the entire building with a gas to the best of my knowledge this is the only sure way to guarantee the total elimination of dry wood termites the advantage of this option is that it is a sure thing if you tent and fumigate then 100 of your drywood termites are going to be dead the disadvantages of doing this is that it is expensive it is inconvenient and it does come with some degree of danger also since this treatment requires that you vacate your home for several days there are criminals out there that know what a tented house looks like and they will literally risk death by entering your house to burglarize it because they know that nobody's home finally like most dry wood treatments this is only going to kill the dry wood termites that are currently in your house and it will do nothing to prevent a future infestation therefore this is going to come with no guarantees that you will not get reinfested now most pest controllers are not equipped to do this treatment method and if you hire them then they are probably going to farm it out to another company that specializes in it personally i think it's always a good idea to eliminate the middleman middleman whenever possible so if you want to do this treatment option then i would recommend that you seek out a company that specializes in fumigation pricing for this option varies greatly i have seen prices as low as 2500 and as high as 8 000 at least at the time this video was made the price you pay for this option is going to depend on a variety of factors such as the size of your building and the area of country area of the country in which you live another option oh and this one's only been around for about 15 years is to treat the entire house with boar care this is a process where the pest controller will come in and treat all the wood in your entire house including inside the walls with a product called boracare the advantages of this treatment option are that you can remain in the house while the treatment is being performed and and this is the really great part of it this treatment is permanent that means if you do this treatment then at least in theory you should never get reinfested since this treatment method has not been around all that long i am not sure personally that this is a guaranteed way to eliminate all the termite galleries in your home now i'm not saying it won't i'm just saying that i'm not sure i think the jury is still out on that and the success of this procedure will most likely depend upon how thorough the pest control company was when they performed this application there may be areas in your home that are very difficult to access and so those areas may not get treated at all or the treatment may be somewhat limited you see this treatment method relies on treating all the wood in your home any wood that is missed or is untreated is going to be subject to another dry wood termite infestation that is the reason why i am not ready at this point to say that this is a sure thing to eliminate all the termites in your house or guarantee that you will never get reinfested the disadvantages of this option are that it requires drilling a lot of holes in the walls and it is difficult to find a pest control company that knows how to do this treatment also they're going to be injecting a lot of this bore care foam into your wall voids and that foam may kind of ooze out from the bottom of the wall onto your carpeting or other flooring surface now this may not cause any damage but you should be aware of the possibility all of this being said i think this treatment method is something that is deserving of serious consideration since this is a fairly new approach for treating for treating dry wood termites i do not know how much a pest controller is going to charge for this option another treatment option that is also fairly new to the to the industry is microwaving this is a process where they take a microwave unit and place it next to the wall where they think the term rates are and they literally cook them to death the microwave unit they use is very similar to the one that you're going to have in your kitchen the way microwaves work is that they heat liquids since termites contain moisture the microwave the microwave will cause the termite bodies to heat up to the point where they can no longer survive this process will kill all the termites in the gallery including the eggs you should be aware though that the microwave unit cannot be placed on all areas of the home so the pest controller is most likely going to need to use some pesticides as well the advantages to this option are that you can remain in the home while the treatment is being performed and it's going to require less use of pesticides than would be required with a traditional type of spot treatment another advantage is that since they will be using microwaving instead of pesticides they will not need to drill as many holes in the walls and it's possible that they may not need to drill any holes at all the disadvantage is that since this process is so new you will probably have a hard time finding a company that can do it also this treatment is essentially the same as spot treating your home with the exception of being that a pest controller will microwave many of the termite galleries instead of treating them with a pesticide that means in order to treat they must inspect to find the galleries and inspecting for galleries is not an exact science therefore this treatment option does not ensure that all the termites are going to be found and it does nothing to prevent future infestations for those reasons most likely the only warranty that you're going to receive for this treatment is that the pest control company may agree to return within one or two years if you discover another gallery all of that being said this too is a treatment option that you may want to seriously consider as with the borah care treatment since this technology is so new i do not have any information regarding pricing finally you can hire a pest control company to do a spot treatment or you can do a spot treatment yourself in both cases just like with microwaving you have to inspect the home and try to find all the places where there are termite galleries and then you need to treat each one individually the advantages of this approach are that you can remain in the home while the treatment is being done and it is probably the most cost effective option particularly if you do it yourself the disadvantages of this option is that it is very easy to miss galleries and the treatment may require the drilling of quite a few holes in your walls also there is no guarantee after the treatment is done that you will not get reinfested again just as with the microwaving option the only warranty that a pest control company is going to give you is that they will agree to return if you find a gallery and then they are only going to treat that specific gallery this is because it is very easy to miss termite galleries during the inspection now it is definitely possible for you to do your own inspection and treatment but you should be aware that if the pros miss galleries it's a pretty safe bet that you may well miss some as well the good news though is that these galleries are typically very easy to treat so if you find one after you do the treatment you can just simply do a follow-up treatment yourself fairly easily now you should know that if you hire a pro not all pros do this treatment the same way some pros are very good at spot treating while others well let's just say they leave something to be desired in my opinion the only way to do a spot treatment correctly is if you treat the attic and the basement that is if you have a basement here in florida we have slabs mostly you have to treat these areas with boracare many pest controllers do not want to do this for the simple reason that it is hot hard nasty work so a lot of them are simply going to spot treat the attic and the basement maybe with a fipronil foam and let it go some of them are not even going to bother with the attic in the basement but if you want to treat your house properly then you need to treat the attic and the basement and that means you have to take remove the insulation from under the flooring in the basement and then replace it because all of that has to be treated with the bora care and i have a video on it which i will place at the end of this video and i'll give you a link in the description as well if you decide that you want to do this treatment option yourself that will be available to you now i have seen prices for this treatment as low as around three hundred dollars and as high as twenty five hundred dollars would you care to venture a guess which one of those two treatments will be doing the boar care treatment in the attic in the basement yeah yeah you sometimes get what you pay for folks now perhaps the worst part of hiring a pest control company to do a spot treatment is that they will most likely offer you an extended warranty for two or three hundred dollars a year and all that covers is a treatment for a gallery that you happen to find after the initial warranty expires you know some may offer a free inspection with that every year but many companies will not you would think for that money the least they could do is inspect your house every year for free or include it in that 300 right but sadly many of them do not anyway extended termite treatment warranties for all treatment methods in my humble opinion are pretty much a waste of money the only exception to this is if you get a warranty that covers the repairs to your home if there is termite damage that happens after the treatment is performed but i have never seen that type of warranty for dry wood termites so when it comes to an extended warranty for dry wood termites my advice is don't waste your money so here's the thing most pest control companies will do a one-time spot treatment for about 300 anyway and guess what most termite companies will come in and inspect for free so why are you spending 300 a year for an extended warranty that just doesn't make any sense so if you find dry wood termites and some molding around a window or something like that you can probably get it treated for about the same price as you would pay for the extended warranty seems like a no-brainer to me now the pest control companies have no magic wands and so you can definitely do this treatment yourself and if you decide to do this treatment yourself you can probably do it for three to five hundred dollars depending on the size of your house and that is going to include the borah care treatment now like i said i have a video on how to do this treatment yourself and i'm going to place a link in the description and a link at the end of this video to make it easier for you to find regardless of the treatment method you choose if you hire a pro always make sure to get several estimates you will find that prices in the industry can vary greatly some companies charge a lot more than other companies for the same exact treatment also some companies will give you a low ball price but they are not going to do the treatment properly oftentimes you are going to get what you pay for therefore in addition to getting a price from a company you should also get also get a copy of their treatment plant you want to know how they are going to treat where they are going to treat and what pesticides they plan to use in your home look it is your house and you are entitled to this information finally please do not fall prey to high pressure sales techniques some companies will tell you that you need to do something immediately or you're going to have a big problem and so they'll tell you it can't wait well don't believe it even though you may have dry wood termites you do have the luxury of time to make an informed decision that's because dry wood termites are slow eaters it takes a bit of time for them to do extensive damage now i would not wait forever but you can certainly take two or three weeks to decide on a company also don't fall for the old the price is only good for today routine trust me the price will be good tomorrow as well in fact the price may even go down tomorrow just tell the inspector that you do not want today's price you want next week's price be sure to tell all the inspectors that you were planning planning to get several estimates and you were going to make a decision based on all those estimates after you look at all of them my wife and i have a very firm and unwavering rule in our house we always tell salespeople that come into the house that we never ever sign a contract in the presence of a salesperson we always take at least a day or two to discuss it amongst ourselves and then make a decision if the salesperson continues to push us to sign a contract then we tell them in very firm language that we will never under any circumstances deviate from this policy and there's absolutely no way that we are going to sign anything today and i think this would be an excellent policy for you to adopt as well not just when you're looking at pest control estimates but for anybody that's going to do work on your house never sign anything in the presence of a salesperson you should also note that most of the companies that used hot that use high pressure sales techniques happen to be the national companies most of the mom and pop outfits do not have this sort of sales training also the national companies often send out a sales person that may have been a pest controller that got promoted to a sales position and they are under a lot of pressure to get you to sign that's because they often work on commission and they may have sales quotas that they are required to meet with the mom and pop outfits you are probably going to be talking to the same person that is going to be to actually be doing your treatments most likely these folks do not work on commission and they do not have sales quotas and in fact the person you were talking to may actually be the owner of the company now i am not saying that you should never get a quote from a national company all i'm saying is that you should be educated to the fact that they may be a little more pushy than the mom and pop outfits to get you to sign a contract in any event always get three to five estimates before you decide on anything and that is a good rule for anything that you are going to have done on your house also it is perfectly fine to tell all of these people that you are going to obtain several estimates that will let them know that you are not an easy target and you may even get a better deal be sure to ask lots of questions too and by the end of this process you are going to know a lot of stuff about dry wood termites and pest control in general okay that's it for me today if you found this video to be of assistance to you in any way please share it with a friend or family member and if you would like to see more of my videos then please click on that subscribe button and don't forget to click on that little bell next to it so that you get notified when i have another video posted now if you really like this video please show me a little love and click on that that like button as well until next time thank you so much for watching and please do not hesitate to ask questions remember i will answer any questions about any pest anytime for anybody for free even if i do not have a video on the particular pest in question i am always here to help

Channel: Guy's Pest Solutions

Views: 19,832

Keywords: Drywood termties, Pest control, pests, extermination, bugs, cockroaches, roaches, do it yourself, DIY, entomology, infestation, chemicals, pest supplies, pesticides, homeowner, apartment, safety, pesticide safety, right way, exterminate, pest controllers, how to, treatment, subterranean

Id: iD6NTU16-XQ

Length: 31min 52sec (1912 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2022