Termite Control

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Home is one of the basic needs of human and we tend to invest a huge portion of our wealth to create one. Moreover, we invest much more in its interior and furniture. No doubt our home is very close to our heart as we seek the moments of peace and happiness in it with our family away from the daily routine distress. Homes and offices made of wood are not the only structures threatened by pest or termite activities. Even constructions made from other materials may also host termite infestations, as these insects are capable of traversing through metal siding, plaster, concrete gaps and more. Termites then feed on cabinets, floors, ceilings and wooden furniture within these homes and offices.It is always better to take proper care before it is too late. When it comes to the pest and termite problems, being late can cost you enough to regret. Hence it is advisable to have pre-construction termite treatment or pest control treatment before your home, office or valuable interior is affected by these pest or termites.

ITEM Secure Pvt. Ltd. is the best pest control and anti-termite treatment provider in Gujarat. With our advanced methodologies and modern techniques, we provide the most efficient and pocket-friendly new construction pest control solutions, reticulated termite treatment, anti-termite treatment and other such treatments for pest and termite problems. Termites may play a useful role in nature by recycling waste or raw wood to the soil as humus. Humus is an organic material that provides necessary nutrients to plants. It also increases the ability of soil to retain water. But these termites when enters the human home or environment, result in great destruction. These termites are well-organized living organisms and are very persistent in search of new food source. There’s a myth that these termites survive only on wood but on the contrary, they can eat anything that contains cellulose like books, boxes, cardboard, wallpaper, carpet backing, etc. To avoid this it is necessary to undertake important actions against them. We, at ITEM Secure Pvt. Ltd., offer different types of pest control services. We offer pre or new construction termite treatment, post-construction termite treatment,anti-termite treatment, reticulated termite treatment and container fumigation.

Our innovative ITEM – Integrated Termite Elimination Method is an innovative and revolutionary process developed by us to offer you the best result to your pest control problem. It is a technology involving intelligent network which includes pipes and valves with built-in drippers. The network of pipes is laid under the floor, inside and outside the building. Eco-friendly Pesticides are pumped into the network which spreads uniformly in the soil, all around the construction. Pumping is done through imported drippers to restrict the entry of termites and other pests in the structure.We offer our patented reticulated termite treatment designed to effectively treat the area under concrete slabs, for protection against infestation by termites and other pests. As new construction termite treatment or pre-construction termite treatment, ITEM secure is installed before the concrete slab is laid.

With our uncompromised quality standards and result oriented working style, we offer the best and efficient pest control and termite control services to our customers.

What are Termite ?

Termites are incredible, small insects that have mastered cooperation allowing them to achieve great things, such as building skyscrapers, hollowing huge trees, moving amazing amounts of soil and of course, eating your house.

Most people are comfortable that they know what an ant is, but hardly anyone seems sure they know what makes a termite a termite. Termites are not ants and certainly not white ants. Termites are most closely related to the cockroaches, and so are very different to ants.

Ants share their insect order with bees and wasps (the Hymenoptera). Termites belong to their own insect order (the Isoptera) and have several clear and obvious differences which make it fairly simple to tell them from apart

	Termite	Ant
Color	most termites are typically whitish, often almost clear–you can usually see the food in their gut, but the winged ones are usually much darker (as above)	many possible colours, usually black or dark red or brown
Shape	six-legged grub, fairly short legs	six-legged grub with narrow waist, legs longer.
Wings	if present, 4, twice as long as body, all roughly the same size and shape, deciduous. If winged, the body is darker	if present, 4, about the same length as body, rear wings obviously smaller, wings retained. Winged ants are typically about the same colour.
Head	no eyes unless winged form	usually obvious eyes
Antennae	like a string of pearls	definitely elbowed, with longer segments
Body	soft	harder, tougher

Termites belong to the Order Isoptera

( Pronounced Eye-sop-terry-a ) , the termites, from the Greek, Iso meaning equal and Petron, meaning wing. The name refers to the wings of the reproductive caste, which isn’t very helpful as most termites are plain workers that never get to grow wings. There are two pairs of wings, with the front pair the same size as the hind pair. The name termite comes from the Latin word termers meaning woodworm (which probably covered some beetle larvae as well).

Description:

Small, pale, soft-bodied social insects living in a nest or colony system. Primarily cellulose feeding. Divided into castes, the most numerous caste are relatively undifferentiated and perform much of the colony work, there is a specialized soldier caste with head and jaw structures differentiated with stronger features and often mouthparts more suited to defense than feeding. The reproductive caste, known as alates (winged ones) are produced when nymphs mature to develop wings and a generally darker coloring. Metamorphosis is gradual (no papal stage)

Head rounded, eyes generally absent except in the reproductive caste, antennae beaded, wings absent except in reproductive caste. Chewing mouthparts. Wings deciduous, shed shortly after nuptial flight through breakage at a suture near point of attachment (hence de-alate), leaving small scales which persist.

Termites are weak fliers, flights occur only under favourable conditions: nearly still air, high humidity and with falling barometric pressure indicating a likelihood of following rain. No constriction of the abdomen (as in ants, bees and wasps). Here’s a similar description at the University of Delaware

Termites also behave in ways that makes them easy to identify. For a start, nearly every type live completely in the dark (except when building or when the winged ones are flying), so you usually only see them when something is broken or open. Once exposed, they will try to follow their scent trails home. If these are broken they just wander around looking lost or squeeze into any gap they can find. Most species of termites have what is called a soldier caste. These grow strong heads, often much darker than those of the other termites. Very often, these strong heads also have big jaws. If you can find some of these among you termites, it makes the job of identifying the species much easier. Soldiers may be rare, only a few percent of the population, so look carefully.

Why termite mounds?

Not all types of ground-nesting termites build mounds.

The only termite mounds of note in North America are either fossils or models. But mounds are common in Africa, SE Asia and South America.

Some termites, particularly some that only eat grass, always seem to build big obvious mounds. Many subterranean termites only build mounds when their original nest tree/stump/log is lost or outgrown. Mounds may persist for decades. Some mounds in African savannas have been dated (from accumulated salts in their air-conditioning ducts) as being over 4,000 years. More than that, they are said to have been continuously occupied for that time. In an architectural sense, that’s quite an achievement.

Architects increasingly like termite mounds. A big mound may house a million of more termites in relative comfort. Coptotermes lacteus, , can keep the temperature deep in the mound where the queen and eggs reside stable ± 1°C over a whole day, throughout the year. That’s better than commercial air conditioning. They do it mostly with evaporative cooling, solar collection, lots of thermal mass and, in the depths of winter, huddling to share metabolic heat. They don’t keep a set temperature, but have a very graceful temperature curve, allowing gradual change between the seasons.

As well as the temperature, they constantly manage gas exchange and moisture content. All of this in castles made of clay and their own faeces.

Mounds are a huge investment of energy and resources. To build a mound, a colony must have a long-term supply of good food nearby. It must also be large, since many termites will spend their time maintaining the mound rather than feeding and these will need to be fed. Some of the largest and most spectacular mounds in Australia are built by termites that feed only on grass. The “magnetic mounds” around Darwin are the best known, but the much larger “cathedral” mounds of Nasutitermes triodiae are equally spectacular. Compare the height of the one pictured here with Man. Both these mound types allow the termites to live in swampland and store food to be used during the long wet season. But not all grass-eaters’ mounds are tall.

Drepanotermes which live in the dry inland country down to NW Victoria build wide flat mounds known as “platforms” which often look like slightly-domed patches of bare earth.

In Africa and SE Asian there are many types that grow big, obvious fungus gardens in their mounds. Macrotermes and Odontotermes are the best known. But fungi and bacteria are present in all mounds and it is likely that most other mound-building species are also farmers of some sort.

Like Hansel & Gretel’s fairytale house of gingerbread, termite mounds are at least partly made of stuff that can be re-used as food, so the mound represents a significant larder as well as the group’s habitation. Coptoteremes in particular can be kept in the lab for many months without added food if housed in their own nest material.

ECOLOGY

The title’s a line from Roman poet Pacuvius, meaning (roughly), “where it is good, there is home“. If ‘it‘ is good for termites, eventually termites will make use of it.

The ecology of termites is the understanding of the ways they fit in the world, in habitats, in between other species, in time, in place, as ecosystem engineers, as food, even as annoyingly troublesome pests.

Termite ecology is a great topic to explore. They are not a great subject choice. Termites are not fast-living animals. They can have exceedingly long generation times. Termites are rarely seen. If you can look one in the eye, it is probably involved in rare, short-term activity or it has been ripped from its nest and knows that it is about to die.

Avoid

In the wild, pest termites usually get by quite happily eating sickly trees or leftover bits of trees.
And the safest, moist and tasty bits are usually underground or right in the middle of big pieces of timber. If your home/building/structure has big bits of wood that are dark or damp or close to the soil . . . .

Subterranean & Dampwood Termites

Subterranean termites usually get about by tunneling underground and entering their food from below. Tree roots are usually attached to trees and termites often travel from root to root great distances underground (there’s almost always a small air gap under a big root, so they don’t even have to dig as much). Timber waste buried around buildings usually leads to better food inside. Sometimes the termites just fly in and start up a fresh colony, but tunnelling is more common, because big bits of damp wood suitable for nesting are more often outside, not in. Dampwood termites don’t tunnel nearly as much but can fly in just as easily. Since the termites are most likely to try to get in via the soil, there are some simple things you can do:

Control moisture

	All types of termites need moisture. Keep your structure dry and well ventilated.
	Ventilate all possible subfloor areas and ensure the vents are kept free and clear. Make sure you wet areas inside (kitchen/bathroom/dungeon) are well vented. Wood can get wet, but must not stay wet.
	Fix all plumbing leaks. Particularly showers and baths. These often have leaks supplying constant moisture that makes the wood just right to be eaten.
	Check all gutters and down spouts, make sure that the water ends up well away from the house. Ideally down spouts should connect to stormwater drains. If you don’t have these, at least redirect the water well away from the house. Down spouts which regularly splash near the structure may be supplying an irresistible source of moisture.
	Avoid having gardens directly against walls–if you must do this, provide space for air movement between the vegetation and the wall and an inspection zone of at least 100 mm. Never have sprinklers wetting the soil near a building or deck. Termites have even been known to enter a building through branches touching walls.
	Make sure that any paving is angled to drain surface water away from the structure. You’d be amazed how often this is done wrong. Some people even build outdoor paving higher than the interior floor level . . like in this photo of the paving around house.

Be careful with timber in ground contact:

	Remove any timber or cellulose material stored on the ground beneath a suspended floor. That includes cardboard boxes and old newspapers, even cotton materials. Clean up any off cuts left during construction. The aim is to maximize the distance between termites and their potential meal.
	Don’t store any firewood in ground contact. This attracts termites. It also prevents the wood drying properly and hence reduces the heat yield on burning (it takes energy to boil water). Set your firewood at least 100 mm above ground (a shelf or trench-mesh sitting on cinder blocks is a cheap solution).
	Structural wood in ground contact should be either termite resistant or treated with a preservative. Better yet, cut it off and mount it on a metal stirrup set in concrete. High and dry is always best.

Drywood Termites

Drywood termites can live in small pieces of wood so long as it is a little moist and not too hot or cold. They’ll fly in and start their colonies right in that wood. Best way to keep them at bay is to disguise your timber.

Too Dry
	Keeping timber very dry will make it impossible for termites to live, but this is impractical in many tropical and coastal areas where the natural humidity is sufficient to keep the wood moist enough for drywood termites. Do what you can to keep timber as dry as possible.
Disguised
	If they don’t know it is wood, they may not find it. Keep all exterior wood well coated with paint or varnish, especially the larger bits and at the joins and ends. Drywood termites begin their attack with just two termites. First the female selects a likely place to live and then pairs up with a male before they start tunnelling. So if you can make the wood unattractive, the termites won’t even try. A bit of preservative can go a long way. If it doesn’t taste good, the termites won’t hang around.
Inaccessible
	If they can’t get to the wood they can’t eat it. Seal up any cracks or fissures (these make it easy for them to get in). Cover vents with fine mesh screening (about 0.8 to 1.0 mm openings–but remember, you may need to increase the vent size to make up for this restriction of air flow). Pay particular attention to the roof and wall frames.

Reduce your Termite Hazard

Following these simple points will greatly reduce your termite hazard. Best of all is to design your structure to be termite resistant from the very beginning. Remember too, that regular inspections can locate termites before they do any major damage.

Detecting termites

Tagged: Termites hide. They are little white, soft-bodied weaklings. Termites avoid light and rarely come out into the open. Termite attack can escape anyone’s notice for a very long time, which can be horribly expensive, not to mention dangerous. A lot of houses that collapse during hurricanes or earthquakes really break due to weakening by termites.
So, how are termites in houses detected?

Your New Home

Congratulations on contracting to buy your new home. Termites are things you won’t want to think about just now, but they might cost you an awful lot of money, perhaps even your house and your marriage.

Think!

Apart from fire and flood, probably the last thing you all be thinking about as you plan take possession is an insidious attack from a bunch of social cockroaches, but please spare them some thought before you move in. These little creatures, properly called termites, can sneak in and slowly eat your property from the inside out. It may be years before you discover that they have caused serious damage. Think about them as you plan your landscaping and before you make any changes.

Check

Hopefully, your home comes with a pre-installed termite barriers and hopefully these will be a least-toxic alternative. If you don’t already know, please ask the vendor. These barriers can help prevent termite attacks that you can’t see. It is very important that you don’t do anything to make life easier for the termites. Make your future life easier instead.

Basic termite info – subterraneans

Right away, the most important threat is from subterranean termites. As the name suggests, these will quickly attack from tunnels in the soil. Often their nest may be 50 metres (150 feet) away. These termites look for food using comfortable paths which usually means they keep out of the light and look for damp soil or timber. These termites live in colonies ranging from around a hundred thousand to more than a million. They work in a cooperative, coordinated manner and will quickly ramp up the attack on a new food source and keep using it for years and years. It is only when something collapses or they venture out that a homeowner is likely to bump into them.

Basic termite info – drywoods

This is the other main pest type. They don’t like to tunnel in the ground and usually nest right in the wood they want to eat. This means that their attack typically means a couple of termites flying in, finding new food and starting a colony. The colony may stay quite small, a few hundred or thousand and even this takes several years. These aren’t usually a day-one concern in new construction built with new materials, but a building can eventually support hundreds of colonies, so they must not be ignored.

Termites Video

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