Borers in Merricks Beach
It is very common for people to think they have termites when in fact they have borers.
A family recently contacted Dawson’s Australia and organised for one of our fully accredited and highly trained termite inspectors to visit their Merrick’s Beach home to conduct a visual termite inspection in accordance with Australian standards.
During the inspection it became clear that this Merrick’s Beach family did not have termites, but instead had an infestation of borers.
Borers are small, they don’t live in colonies or nests, they don’t build homes within your home. Instead, they eat it and live in the tunnels that they make – creating a lot of damage for such a small insect!
Signs of a Borer Infestation
The first sign that your home or even furniture has a borer infestation is small pin holes in the timber, this is the hole where the adult borer has emerged from the wood or you may see frass (like sawdust). An adult Borer will only live for a short period of time.
After mating the female will inject her eggs into the pores of the timber. The larvae which are the ones that do the damage, feed upon starch and other nutrients in the sapwood. Some timbers where the sapwood has insufficient starch, or its pores are too narrow for the female’s ovipositor, should be non-susceptible. However, conducive conditions such as high moisture and poor ventilation can open the pores of the timber and allow borer attack.
The damaged caused by these insects can be just as costly as a termite infestation. Eating the wood making it weak, floorboards, chairs, ceiling beams just about everything is on the menu!
By getting Dawson’s Australia out to complete a Borer treatment when they did, this family’s home will soon be borer free and the damage caused by these little pests was thankfully isolated to a couple of subfloor timbers, it could have been a lot worst making it a costly repair.
Common borers found in Victorian homes (above)
Borer Infestation Treatment
Our Borer treatment is applied to all accessible timber surfaces throughout the roof void and/or subfloor areas using a timber-saver Boric acid treatment. This treatment will kill the adult beetles as they emerge from the timber before they have an opportunity to mate and re-infest.
