Termiticide Treatment for New Homes: Why Pre-Construction Barriers Matter

Imagine building a house in an area where flooding is known to be a regular occurrence, yet you don't build it on stilts or with some kind of defence barrier or advanced drainage system. That would be crazy. Sooner or later, you would get swamped – and you would only have yourself to blame.

Now think about termites instead of water. Again, you build the house with no defence system. It would be only a matter of time before the termites turned up and set about destroying what you built. Crazy, and yet it happens more often than you'd like to think.

People build houses without implementing treatment for termites , knowing full well that termites are always looking for food, water and shelter and are going to be delighted, determined to move in right away. Because human settlements are exactly what these pests are looking for – and pests is what they are.

Technically they are insects, very similar to ants, and all they are doing is eating and drinking and surviving. It's just that, without having anything against humans, they survive at our expense. The bizarre thing is that we don't have to tolerate this: there are treatments for termites that can give us protection.

Termite Treatment as Part of the Construction Process

The ideal way of preventing termite trouble is to build in some protection, and if you are starting from scratch, having a new building created, you need to get a termite treatment company involved at an early stage. Get yourself a pre-construction barrier that can stop these tiny terrors in their tracks.

'Tiny terrors' might sound like a cute name but it's important to remember the havoc termites cause is not funny. They can't help it, they're just doing what comes naturally, but if it's a question of us or them, we have to be firm and unemotional about this. The pre-construction barrier method of termiticide treatment means killing them. All of them as far as possible.

How Toxic are Termiticides?

The new generation of termiticides are less harmful to humans and animals – and that is deliberate. It's a product of our growing awareness of how dangerous chemicals can be, and how destructive to the environment. Old-school termiticides used to come with claims of being effective for 30 years, and that was great in a way. On the other hand, it meant that you have toxic substances on your property for three whole decades.

The modern attitude is if you can use a more effective termiticide with a shorter active life, you can have the best of both worlds. You've still got to be very careful not to come into contact with these chemicals, but the risk is reduced.

Termiticide Reticulation: More Sophisticated and Safer

The simple form of termite barrier is basically a trench with the chemical spread in it. This is effective against subterranean termites, the most destructive type in Australia. Effective but somewhat primitive.

Reticulation simply means a system of pipes laid underground with access points at convenient points on the surface. The termiticide is injected into the system and dispersed into the ground via the pipes, keeping the toxic liquid away from inquisitive children and animals, although it is still there, so if you were out there with a spade, you would have to be careful where and how deep you were digging.

Reticulation provides the opportunity to top up the termiticide from time to time, so if it has an effective life of, say, seven years, the pest control company can do the necessary according to a schedule. Soil type and climate can affect the duration of the chemical's effectiveness.

This is still to all intents and purposes a one-off treatment compared with alternatives such as using bait rather than termiticide, because bait stations need to be monitored and replenished at short intervals. With a reticulation system you leave it to the specialists and can forget about termites, safe in the knowledge that it is being taken care of.

Modern termiticides have been developed in the knowledge that termites have a certain ability to notice when those at the front of the battalion are being killed and will hold back and look for another way. The new chemicals are less obvious to termites, who can walk through them and take traces back to the nest where others can be affected.

This is a different way of thinking on the part of anyone seeking to get rid of termites. While the original idea was to use a repellent, which simply made life difficult for these insects, the current approach is to destroy by stealth.

A reticulation system installed before the main construction is simple; it is the logical thing to do. For those not starting from scratch, though, such a system can be installed afterwards. It may mean drilling access holes in patios etc, but these can be plugged neatly so as to be almost unnoticeable.

The new chemicals are also designed to be less harmful to plants, so your termite treatment need not come at the cost of spoiling your garden. Modern termiticides are also less damaging to the environment.

As an added benefit, those who have had a house built with a termiticide barrier and later sell it will benefit from a higher sale price because it has effective termite protection. So, treatment for termites with a preconstruction barrier is not just a common sense move, it's also an investment.

At Dentec Pest Management, we can help you create this necessary barrier to protect your home. Contact our team here to get started.