Termites
Horne’s Pest Control & Waterproofing provides three layers of termite control for your home:
Exterra – The superior baiting system. Baiting canisters placed around your home designed to target and eliminate foraging termites.
Termidor – The most effective liquid termiticide placed around your homes foundation. Designed to prevent and kill termites entering the structure.
Premise – The most effective gel bait on the market injected into the infested timbers of your home. Designed to begin eliminating termites immediately.
How we do it.
The training of a Horne’s Pest Control Termite Technician.
At Horne’s we believe it is not just the potency of the product, but als o the aptitude of the applicator. We are committed to the continuous training of our termite and pest control technicians. We enroll them in numerous school programs including:
• Clemson University’s Termite School
• University of Georgia’s Structural Pest Control Training Program
• Clemson University’s Pest Control School
• Purdue University’s Termites and Other Wood Destroying Organisms Correspondence Program
What is Exterra?
Esterra is a termite baiting station that is installed in the ground around your home. Below is a breif explanation of how it works:
1. Termites are subterranean insects that live in colonies. There are three castes of termites: workers, soldiers, and reproductives. As their name implies, each caste has their unique duties.
• Worker termites randomly and consistantly forage for food up to 150 feet from the home colony. Based on this, Monitoring stations are placed at approximatly 15-20 feet intervals around the exterior of the structure and near any other areas that are conducive to termites (wood piles, etc.) These stations are brown and easily blend in with pine straw or pin bark.
2. Monitoring devices are placed inside the stations. A Horne’s technician will come bu regularly and inspect these stations for activity.
3. After termites enter the stations and begin to consume the monitoring devices, bait is placed in the stations. Termites cannot differentiate between bait and other food sources.
4. Since termites secrete pheromones when they forage for food, other termites will realized where the bait is and therefore, consume it also.
5. In addition, termites contain a single cell protozoa in their hind gut that enables them to digest wood. It is necessary that secretions containing these protozans be exchanged among termites. This ensures that the cast majority will either eat, be fed or ingest infected secretions of Exterra.
6. Upon consumptions, termites slowly get lethargic and do not perform their duties. Some of the worker termites caste’s duties are feeding the solider and reproductive castes, building galleries, removing excrement and other debris from the galleries and location new food sites.
7. The bait prevents the termites from molting (shredding their outer layer of skin) thereby causing them to slowly die off. During the time they are dying, the termites are disoriented and as a result, non of the day to day activities take place. The soldiers and reproductive don’t get fed. Reproduction stops and the soliders do not protect the colony from invaders (ants). The galleries and tunnels break down from lack of maintenance. This hinders travel and my possibly expose the termites to the fatal ultraviolet rays of the sun. Moreover, the tunnels and galleries fill with excrement and dead termites. This emits toxic odors that promotes lethal bacteria growth.
8. This general colony break down ensures the death to even the few termites that may not be infected.
Why is Exterra the best?
Hornes’s is or has been authorized to use every baiting system available in this area. This enables us to know Exterra is the best. Below are some of the reasons.
A. The stations are larger and therefore hold more wood and bait. This greatly reduces the risk of the termites vacation the stations between monitoring intervals.
B. The monitoring devices are closer to the edge of the stations which in turn puts them closer to the soil in which the termites live. This increases the likelihood of the termites entering the stations.
C. Exterra stations contain eight monitoring devices. This is important in that termites generally enter a piece of wood through the corner. Eight monitoring devices equates to 32 corners as apposed to 8 with the others.
D. Exterra has the lowest disturbance bait placement method on the market. This is the most important feature. Other systems require that you pull out more monitoring devices and termites, empty them into a temporary container, fill the bait canister, then dump the termites back into the station. Often times this causes termites to emit an alarm pheromone and vacate the station. The Exterra canister is different in that the bait is installed in the center of the termites are not disturbed.
E. Exterra has two bait formulations. Unlike the other systems which only have a dry formulations, Exterra also has a liquid/paste formulation. This is extremely desirable to termites in the hot summer months when we are experiencing a drought.
Challenges Bait Systems Face
Although bait installations are approved as a full or stand alone treatment, we realize they have some challenges. Some of these challenges are:
1. There is no attractant in a bait station. Termites randomly forage for food with no discernible pattern; therefore, it is by complete chance that termites find your stations. It can take several months and up to two years before your home’s bait stations show activity. During this time termites can and do enter buildings and cause damage.
2. When termites are actively eating your home they are emitting pheromones that are communicating with other termites and telling them where your home is. This may increase the time it takes for termites to find the bait stations.
3. Your home can have more than one termite colony. Old research indicated that there was one termite colony per acre of land. New research indicates that there may be as many as eight termite colonies per 1/4 acre of land. The termites eating the bait may or may not be the same colony of termites that are eating your home.
4. Upon ingesting the bait, it still takes several weeks to months before the termite colony dies.
The Answers
ONE.
A Foundation Treatmet with Termidor
Your home has an unlimited amount of entry points through the foundation, footings, attached porches and patios and under the carport or garage. In addition, if termites are in your home, they must return to the ground for water on a daily basis. They will use these same entry points to accomplish this. These entry points are greatly minimized by performing a liquid supplemental treatment. This treatment is established by performing the following control measures:
STEP 1:
Digging a shallow trench around the entire interior foundation wall and pillars and raking out all of the debris from your crawl space.
STEP 2:
Trenching around the entire exterior of the foundation that is not joined by concrete or asphalt.
STEP 3:
Injecting termiticides into these trenches and filling them in.
Why Termidor?
A. It has a non-repellent formulation. Often times if termites are able to detect termiticide, they will look for a break in the liquid treatment barrier and find a path around the insecticide.
B. Once termites pass through the barrier and receive a lethal dosage, they unavoidably transfer lethal dosages to other termites much the same as bait does and also by simple contact. This transfer effect helps to ensure the entire colony will become infected.
C. Termidor kills termites nine times faster than bait.
D. Termidor has a proven 100% effectiveness life span of 13 years and counting. The effectiveness of Termidor has been documented by over 16 universities, the U.S. Forestry Department and independent research labs. It is the best termiticide on the market bar none.
TWO.
Targeted applications to termites Feeding on the
Wooden Structural Member of your home with Premise
An important objective in our termite control program is to stop the termites NOW in order to prevent any more damage from occurring to your home. This is done by two methods.
1. Injecting Premise Gel Bait directly into the galleries of the termite infested timbers. This bait formulation is highly desirable to termites for many reasons one of which is its high moisture content. It is not uncommon to see many termites feeding on this bait simultaneously.
2. Inject Premise Foam into the wall voids and cavities where the termites are. Premise Foam has the consistency of shaving cream, it fills the voids and slowly penetrates into the wood.
Premise starts to work immediately on the termites in your home. It is also a non-repellant formulation which transfers lethal dosages to the other termites. After contacting Premise, termites will become disoriented and cease feeding and tunnelling. Next, they will stop grooming and caring for one another. When grooming stops, the termite will become infected with fungal spores in the soil and wood.
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