Yesterday I went out and noticed the ends of a wood beam used to support a flower bed has been hollowed out a bit. Not all the wood beams just a couple. I'm uploading one photo of my other wood beams and one photo of the infestation.
It's wood. Wood decays. Fungus and bacteria are both natural parts of why things decay. Even if it was treated wood, not all wood is meant for ground contact... and yours are touching the ground. I'm also guessing the cut ends were never treated with anything after they were cut.
I suspect ants are doing that, plus wood decay from moisture. Ants are attracted to water damaged wood. Pressure treating doesn't always reach into the centers of the larger beams. Sometimes the centers of pieces are denser in some than in others, as well as other variables.
Look carefully in the "frass" to see if there are dead ants and/or ant body parts. As ants die they are removed from the colony. That's a telltale sign along with the size of the frass, which is comparable to the size and consistency of carpenter ant frass.
At this point there isn't any treatment you can apply. The wood is nearing the end of it's useful life. A retaining wall or raised bed is one of the worst locations for wood. There is plenty of oxygen available from the exposed side and it's kept moist by the soil on the other side. The absolute perfect conditions for molds, fungus and insects to break down wood. You've probably got several years left in that wall but it would be a good idea to start thinking of replacement ideas.
What started out as a resurfacing of my 1979 entrance steps and stoop turned into a rebuild. The workers discovered the old stoop was full of sand and the foundation block hadn't been tarred, which likely explains the effluorescence on the block wall inside my house.
Anyway, they pulled most of the sand out and have replaced it with pieces of the old concrete steps mixed with a little sand from the base to about 2 feet from the top. My concern is that my house previously had termites under the entrance door and the side wall, and I paid to treat again in 2003 when I moved in so as to get a termite contract. Now that much of the termidor-soaked sand has been removed, I'm thinking I need to have more dumped into that space before the concrete is poured for the stoop top and steps.
My contractor is willing to get a group to do it, but they are saying the chemical needs to dry before the contractor can pour concrete. That doesn't make sense to me because previous treatments were done thru drilled holes into the closed concrete stoop and nothing could have dried out.
My questions:
1) Should they just put termidor into the sand-concrete mixture of the stoop, or should they also spray the inside exposed block wall (that has been tarred)? What about the outside tarred block wall?
2) Does the concrete block and or ground surface that is the base of the new steps need to be treated or only the stoop area? (I don't remember if holes were drilled in the steps before.)
My current pest control company is new to me (previous owner retired) and they are not being helpful.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
I've tried three times and can't upload pix. They are 60kb and 145kb.
Cleaning the side of house ( split level) and found lot of these on ground
Is it termite ? If not, what it is and how to treat?
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06-16-22, 04:34 PM
