How do you prevent drywood termites? Here are some suggestions to stop their infestation.

Three types of termites are known to invade people’s homes, business units, social and religious centers.

They are; Dampwood termite, Subterranean Formosan termite, and Drywood termite.

Preventing Drywood Termite Infestation

Of the three types of termites, Drywood is the only one with the ability to adapt to an environment of very low moisture and can survive without soil.

Drywood Termites can adapt to any region and can survive under any climatic condition except the freezing winter season. They don’t need water to survive, as long as the wood is available, they are good to go.

Their presence is not so noticeable because they live inside the wood, they feed on wood and end up wreaking havoc on the wood. By the time you notice which you won’t at the early stages, the damage might probably be irreparable.

8 Preventive Measures Against Drywood Termites

Try the following preventive measures to guard against the infestation of drywood termite in your home:

  1. Screen Your Vent

You need to prevent the entry of drywood termites into your home by putting a screen on your vents.

The appropriate screen to use is the 20-grade screen mesh to cover every vent in your home because you don’t want an unwanted colony straying in your home, and one of their main entry points is the vent.

So screen your vent and stop them from coming in.

  1. Get Your Wood Treated

Some woods contain substances that repel drywood, but for others, you will have to treat them with insecticides that will repel or kill the termites. You can treat your wood with Timbor; it is made with disodium octaborate tetrahydrate.

Timbor has very high toxicity to drywood termites but presents little or no risk to humans or pets.

  1. Use Wood injection

Another way of preventing a drywood termite infestation is to inject your wood with DRI-OUT. DRI-OUT is a wood treatment that is free of toxic chemicals that helps to avoid plant or wood damage.

It is very useful in the management of drywood termite infestation.

All you have to do is inject the DRI-OUT into your woods, and you don’t have to move out like when you are fumigating your house or using other spray chemicals.

  1. Use a Wood Spray

You don’t have to use spray wood only after an infestation; you can also spray your wood as a preventive measure against a possible infestation. As a matter of fact, it is better and much cheaper to spray your wood before infestation.

A termiticide and a fungicide are what make up the spray. The mineral salt content of the spray will remain for as long as the wood.

To spray your woods, you are better off employing a professional to do the job effectively, to reduce the risk of exposing yourself and your household to high toxicity.

Another option is to make use of natural oils in place of toxic chemicals.

  1. Keep Your Firewoods Away

Keep your firewood far away from your home. Whether for warming or cooking, you mustn’t store them up in your home.

If you have a constant need for firewood in your home, it is better to have firewood storage that is sited away from your home but not too far from you so that you can easily get your supplies when you need them.

  1. Seal up Holes and Cracks

Another way of preventing drywood termites from getting through to your home is to seal up every crack on the wall or hole in your furniture.

You should also seal up all holes and/or spaces in the foundation of your home to prevent those wandering pests from making your house their home.

  1. Reduce Ground Contact

If you don’t ever want a drywood termite infestation in your home, you have to reduce the ground contact of your wood; it will reduce the possibility of them invading your home.

Nowadays, home improvement outfits provide concrete support so that you can save your wood for decks and patios.

  1. Apply Termiticide

There is a liquid pesticide that can help prevent drywood termite from your household. This pesticide is applied at the foundation and under the foundation as well.

The pesticide is added to the soil as the home is being built if the house is built already, it is better to partially dig out the foundation to add the termiticide

You can get termiticide at any store where insecticide is sold.

Taking preventive measures like doing your regular house cleaning will reduce the possibility of a drywood infestation in your home.

If there is any hole in your furniture, fill it up, if there are cracks, seal it up, take care of all the windows and doors, and make sure that all the vents are covered with screens, and you won’t have to worry about drywood termite.

Termites are a nuisance with a single purpose, and all in their thousands are united in pursuing a single goal. If they target a piece of wood, that wood is as good as gone.

More so, it does not matter the number of years you have spent in your home, you will still be faced with the threat of a possible outbreak and that is why taking preventive measures should be your top priority when it comes to dealing with drywood termites.

In taking preventive measures, you should always be careful and watch out for the signs of their presence in your house.

How To Detect The Presence of Drywood Termites

Identifying the presence of Drywoods in your home will require that you pay more attention to the following signs

  1. Clicking Sounds

When soldier termites are banging their head against the wood or when they are shaking their bodies to send a signal to the colony that danger is on its way, they make some clicking sounds, loud enough if you put your ears close to the infested wood, you can hear the clear clicking sounds.

The workers’ termites are also noisy eaters. If you pay close attention to an infested area, you will hear the racket as they munch their food.

With music on especially rock music, they tend to eat two times faster. This is because they are very sensitive and can detect noises and vibrations with the help of their antennae.

  1. Discarded Wings

After they mate, they discard their wings. The new couple will then crawl to another nesting site where they shut themselves and begin to reproduce to start another colony.

The new rulers (King and queen) now have the responsibility of taking care of their young until they breed a set of workers to take over that duty.

  1. A Resemblance of White Ants

When it looks like you see white ants around your household, pay closer attention to the insect; if the insect is cream in color and seems transparent, that is a termite.

If the insect’s antennae are very straight and not bent in any way, that’s a termite. More so, the waist part of a termite appears thicker than that of an ant; ants have a narrower abdomen.

Whenever you spot a white insect, you should assume it is a termite because there are no species of white ants.

  1. Furniture Damage

Another way to spot the presence of a termite infestation is by the havoc they wreak on woods and furniture.

Drywood termites’ specialty is in devouring wood from the inside, such a way that leaves only the outer layer or the paints.

  1. Stiff Windows and Doors

Whenever you discover that your windows are becoming stiff or your door is becoming hard to close, you have a good reason to suspect a termite infestation in your home or office.

Normally, a stiff door or window is a sign of damp or hot weather, and all you need is to get a lubricant to solve the problem. But then again, termites produce moisture when consuming woods that cause the window or door to become warped when passing through the woods within the doors and window.

  1. Termite Droppings

Another way to detect termite’s presence in your household is by their droppings known as Frass.

Drywood species do not use their droppings to build tunnels, unlike the subterranean termites. They are a very neat tiny little pest who prefers to get rid of their droppings by pushing them out near the entrance to their nest.

Conclusion

If you want to stop a drywood infestation, the best way is to prevent them from coming close to your home.

Preventing termites from getting into your home does not only save the money to spend to get rid of them, think about this;

The population of a single termite colony that nests somewhere in your home ranges between 300,000 – 1,000,000 termites consisting of workers, soldiers, and the alates or swarmers.

Did you know that a single termite queen can lay more than a thousand eggs in a single day? And that her life spans up to 50 years?

This means that the queen termite can keep populating her colony whenever they are depopulated by a disaster, probably caused by your exterminator. If they find your home a comfortable environment for their survival, they just would never leave.

Therefore, the best way to combat your household enemy called drywood termite is to prevent them from ever getting to your home.

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