So Thailand seems to have one of the most successfull Termite populations in the world! Are they different? How do you beat them /control them? tell us your secret weapon and where to get it!
:confused:
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So Thailand seems to have one of the most successfull Termite populations in the world! Are they different? How do you beat them /control them? tell us your secret weapon and where to get it!
:confused:
we get our house foundations injected every couple of years
seems to keep them at bay
just spraying cannot reach where they are living under the house
It's kind of like the 3 little pigs and tbe big allegedly bad wolf, he couldn't blow down a house of bricks and termites cannot eat cement.:)
do you have cement doors and windows?
They do make aluminum windows and doors of metal and other materials in Thailand. I don't have any wood doors or windows on my house.
We had termites eating the baseboards, door frames and starting to work on some of the furniture. Tried spraying several times but it was not very effective. They would be discouraged for a week or two but always came back in force.
Eventually I had a pest control contractor treat the whole house....which included drilling right through the floors in each room and injecting a lot of chemical under high pressure right down into the soil beneath the structure. They spend hours on the job and it cost me 9000Thb with a three year follow up and maintenance program.
Even after that...the fucking termites managed to make a few counter attacks and the spraying treatment had to be repeated several times over the following six months before they finally gave up. It's amazing how much damage they can do before you even know there is a problem. They can eat right under painted woodwork surface and there is no sign of anything wrong until you start to see what looks like a brown or black stain appearing on the surface.
If the Thai people worked like their national Termites, this place would be outperforming Singapore.....and most of us could not afford to live here.....:)
Yep. Our house was constructed with built-in channels for termite spray under the house. This worked great up until 3 years ago, when we had a kitchen extension added. The contractors did not integrate new channels for the new building, and within a few months we had a serious termite infestation; the little blighters destroyed a lot of built-in furniture before we could get a handle on them.
The kitchen floor had to be taken up and modified again. Now we have the bug spray people come round twice a year just to make sure.
Not sure if this stuff is available overseas, but in australia there is only one really effective treatment for termites - its called Termidor. Actually - its a treatment system.
The first part involves puffing some special dust into timber that has activity. the little bastards ingest this stuff without knowing, and take it back to the colony - usually as stated previously - in subterranean tunnels. after 5-7 days the whole colony will be wiped out - including the queen which is important.
The second part involves trenching around peers, walls etc. and also drilling solid concrete areas and pumping in under pressure another chemical which is a long term barrier treatment - it kills the bastards for up to another 8 -10 years guaranteed.
I think Termidor is also available in the US - maybe you can purhase it online.
I know all about termites now - they were eating away my bar at home for months - right under our noses while we were enjoying some bevies and playing pool....
A modern method in other countries is to simply lay an impenetrable stainless steel screen under the slab.
When I prepare the foundations on a new house build I always lay down 10mm diameter PP plastic pipes which have had 3mm holes drilled at equal intervals along it's length which act as spray jets.
I lay these pipes out within the outer perimeter of the house footprint (and within the outer floor beams and in a dug-out trough) and connect the pipes to an elbow joint in 4 positions that connects to a barb snap-on nozzle on each corner of the house.
Before I pour the cement slab I cover the pipes with course gravel which protects the pipes against being blocked by the cement flow.
I then high pressure inject these pipes with insecticide flooding the underside of the foundation once a year which kills Termites, cockroaches, ants and many other insects that may invade your living area.
There are may irrigation piping systems which provide the same benefits but those units are very expensive and nowhere near as strong as when you build a system yourself.
Great idea Loy Toy! why didn,t I start this thread BEFORE I poured my slab! Still I can incorporate the idea completely around the slab underneath the paths I intend to pour I guess! Makes a lot of sense....and they usually are connected to an external nest so should work!
Yes, mate it is a shame but if you run those pipes around your footings and existing slab it should still work but nowhere near as affective.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Ramjet
I find ants a bigger headache and this system sure keeps those beasts away.
Question: Did you douse the soil underneath your slab with insecticide before pouring it?
There is/was a university in bangkok that breeds and distributes a nematode worm that crawls up the termites bum and paractises it. You spray a contaminated solution on to places where the termites are running round and then the infected termites take it back to the nest. Not sure how effective it is or its ability to provide long term protection. But it is suability non toxic to humans
If anyone interested I can try and dig up the details, you will need to thai speaker though.
it is and I managed to get some back to the UKQuote:
Originally Posted by greyman63
however, most places are not allowed to send out of the country, so I was lucky they wanted my money rather than stick to the law
our builder put small flexible pipes to all the foundation cavities in our last build, so the injectors can just be connected to those rather than drilling the floors every metreQuote:
Originally Posted by Loy Toy
No unfortunately I don't think it was done but it's possible...I will ask the builder who prepared the foundations and poured the slab as I was away quite a bit on the days the slab and footings were being prepared.....Whilst I know the little blighters can eat through concrete....I amde this slab at least twice as thick as usual as although we had good base for the footings..I was not completely happy with the compaction due to our "express" time frame. No sign of the slightest cracking so at least they will take a while to munch inside to our posts!
best and least expensive way Chickens have a couple running around... termites gone... next problem....
The concept of using chickens to eliminate termites sounds like it could be an effective, environmentally friendly, alternative to poisons. The downside would be the smell, bird shit, and their incessant cackling.
But how effective would they really be? We built a wood house in Isaan in 1973. It lasted about 20 years before succumbing to the termite hoards. This was in a village where every family kept chickens freely running about. However, I don't know what wood the house was constructed of. This area didn't have any teak forests. It's certainly possible that the wood was not the most suitable and without the chickens the place would have fallen apart much quicker.
I don't know how chickens can get at termites inside the foundations of a house
When the foundations were poured starting my house, I bought a 50 gal. barrel of used motor oil and poured it on the ground. Never been any kind of bug or termite problem. I couldn't do that in America, the enviromentalist would raise hell. Cheap and life time pest control.
I would not feel at ease with the entire underside of my house injected with termite poison. The poison evaporates and rises into your living and sleeping quarters; it is plain dangerous not only to the health of termites but to people too.
In any event I have yet to encounter termites in any of the many houses I've renter over twenty years in Thailand.
As an aside, I use a squirt of windex window cleaner to kill mossies, they immediately tumble to the floor; rather than toxic nerve agents they bottle for that purpose. Nor do I use the perfumed air deodorants especially the ones made to blow directly into your face when attached to a car's interior air vents.
The extremely polluted air in Thailand is bad enough without polluting your own personal environments.
yet you are happy to destroy the environment here?Quote:
Originally Posted by ralphlsasser
that oil will seep into the groundwater; do you have a borehole?
doubtful as it is water based and dries out to a crystalline deposit in the earthQuote:
Originally Posted by jingjoke