Termites
About
In Oklahoma, we have what are called subterranean termites. Subterranean means that they travel underground. Because of this, they can enter the home undetected (even you can’t catch them, Ring doorbell!) and feast on the structure of the home for years, even decades before any evidence is shown.
Evidence of termites consists of seeing live termites, termite tubes, termite frass (poop!), or damaged wood. Besides live termites, an untrained eye is unlikely to detect evidence.
Conditions that are conducive to termites: moisture around the foundation of the home, earth to wood contact, wood stored around a home, etc.
There are 3 kinds of subterranean termites:
- Soldiers: protect the colony from invaders
- Workers: forage for food
- Swarmers: go start new colonies; swarming season is normally during April & May
How we treat
Sentricon bait stations
For a variety of reasons, some people aren’t interested in a liquid termite treatment. If they still want to protect their home against termites, the Sentricon bait system is a great option. With the bait system, we insert Sentricon bait stations approximately every 10 feet around the home. In each bait station there is a stick of Sentricon’s Always Active bait. This bait is preferable to termites over wood, which would attract them to it instead of your home. The unique thing about this bait is that it also has a termiticide in it. So if termites are near the home, they will go to the Sentricon bait, eat it, carry it back, and spread the termiticide throughout the colony, thus eliminating the colony.
We charge an annual monitoring fee for coming out to check the bait stations once a year and to keep their bait stations active.
If someone has termites and wants a Sentricon system, we do a liquid spot treatment of the area where termites are in addition to installing the Sentricon system.
Complete liquid treatment
In the areas where there is soil right up against the home, we dig a trench 6 inches deep along the house. In concrete areas such as porches and driveways, we drill into the concrete every 12 inches along the perimeter of the home.
Once the trenches are dug and the holes drilled, we saturate the soil with termiticide. After applying the termiticide, we refill the trenches with the soil we’d removed. We also put plugs in the holes in the concrete and patch them with concrete.
We offer a termite renewal which, if kept up by the customer, acts like a warranty against future termite treatments. If the annual renewal is kept current and the customer gets termites again, we come back out and treat for free. This is optional. If someone chooses not to renew, we don’t come dig up the soil we treated 🙂
Spot liquid treatment
We use the same methods above and treat a minimum of 3 feet on either side of the termite activity. Additionally, we drill into the brick veneer every 16 inches and foam the walls with Termidor.
Spot treatments do not have any renewals or guarantees.