# Is termite tenting really necessary?



## Half-fast eddie (Sep 19, 2020)

Is it necessary? Well ... its one method of killing existing bugs of all kinds.


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## ChuckTin (Nov 17, 2014)

Tenting is certainly ... Interesting. It one of those fad cures that reappears, here in FLA, every decade. IMO There are two questions - does it work? Properly done, apparently yes (I have never had the direct experience, so I'm relying on situations I've observed and neighbors I've spoken with).
And, is it "The Cure"? Well the infestation it's supposed to eradicate, " dry-wood termites" are usually very local, within a few boards. But then (after tenting) the neighbors had the roof eaves, and some decking, replaced anyway.
Choose as you see fit. But my option would be R&R of the sections with pre-treated lumber.
And consider - you are buying land and location first, then construction, then additions.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

@jplee3 where are you?

If you're in California, you're likely to have to do the tent thing, like it or not.

I agree that it's not a total cure all, but it sure wipes out lots of bugs for a while. The big problem here is "dry wood" termites that can infest many parts of a house or other structure at once. It's a bit surprising how many colonies you can have.

It turns out that the stuff they use kills things like roach and bedbug eggs, too (or at least back in the 1980s it did). 

Did they tell you what kind of chemical they're using? They used to use methyl bromide which is really great, but deadly. Wouldn't surprise me if it's been replaced by now.


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## jplee3 (Jan 11, 2012)

DoomsDave said:


> @jplee3 where are you?
> 
> If you're in California, you're likely to have to do the tent thing, like it or not.
> 
> ...


Thank all!

@DoomsDave I'm in Southern California (Orange County). Good to know about tenting though. The termite company actually had a small note/disclaimer mentioning that there's a possibility that they'll find further damage when doing the demo to remove the damaged wood members, and that further inspection would be required... I'm thinking the quote they gave would likely turn into a higher amount pretty quickly.

That said, we decided to back out of escrow on this home - there were just too many red flags and things that made us uncomfortable. Besides how potentially extensive the termite damage is, the sellers were also not entirely forthcoming about their disclosures. We asked them directly about water damage/slab leaks and they disclosed two incidents in 2013 and 2014 yet somehow failed to disclose water damage in 2017 where they went through insurance and claimed nearly $17,000 of damage. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for us - failing to disclose that after being asked directly is just unacceptable. I feel like the seller's agent was condoning this behavior too. So in light of that, and whatever else they might have been hiding from us, we decided it was better to cut our losses and back out. On top of all this, there was a notable crack in the slab that was severe enough to warrant having an engineer/geologist look at - we scheduled to have this done this past Monday but the revelation of the $17k worth of damage in 2017 came up the night before and we decided to call everything off and back out. An extremely frustrating and disappointing experience and hopefully we won't have to go through anything like it again. I feel like sellers (and their agents) are downright acting borderline shady/fraudulent in the current market. With zero accountability.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

@jplee3 you're welcome, I'm in the OC too.

Usually, dry wood termites don't cause the kind of catastrophic damage that the subterranean types can. They have small colonies of a few thousand individuals, right in the wood they're eating. Usually, they don't bother structural integrity much, unless the property hasn't been tented in a long while, like 40 years.

Subterranean types can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of individuals in their colonies. They can destroy or severely damage the integrity of a structure. They live in the soil and "commute" through "tubes" made of soil glued together with their saliva to whatever they're eating. They're much more common back east than here, thank heaven.

Hmm. What kind of "slab leak" did the place have?


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## jplee3 (Jan 11, 2012)

DoomsDave said:


> @jplee3 you're welcome, I'm in the OC too.
> 
> Usually, dry wood termites don't cause the kind of catastrophic damage that the subterranean types can. They have small colonies of a few thousand individuals, right in the wood they're eating. Usually, they don't bother structural integrity much, unless the property hasn't been tented in a long while, like 40 years.
> 
> ...


The property was built in 1985 or 1986. From the looks and sounds of it, I don't believe the owners _ever_ tented it - the fascias, rafter tails, and parts of the shiplap looked to be in awful condition - the termite vendor was poking holes in them all day long and was lamenting about how terrible the condition was. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're behind the walls too.

So the extent of the slab leaks that we know of were between the cold and hot water lines from the kitchen to the master bath upstairs. I guess there was a leak on that side of the home where they had to re-route PEX into the attic. I would have never known all this had I not discussed with a plumber via texting about how the general inspector verbally noted PEX in the attic - he told me if there's PEX in the attic there was a slab leak somewhere; this is what prompted us to inquire with the sellers.

I believe the $17k of water damage was likely another slab leak that could have occurred in the garage area - I'm not familiar with where slab leaks can originate but possibly between the main and the house-shut-off since the main is on the left-side of the home at the sidewalk and the house shut-off is on the right-side of the home next to the front door. I'm _guessing_ the [copper] line from the main runs under and across the garage slab - what's interesting is that there's a piece of particle board screwed onto the wall right over where the slab crack extending into the foundation is:









I'm wondering if that's where the portion of water main line crosses under the garage slab - if there was another leak that occurred there, then I could see that causing erosion of the soil in that area and leading to the crack seen in the picture. The plumber may have cut into the wall there to make the repair to the line and after he was done the homeowners decided to possibly just pocket the insurance money and screw the particle board in to cover-up the repair work and left the cracked slab as is. I noticed a bag of cement mix sitting off to the side so perhaps they were intending just to fill the crack up but who knows...? It all seems very suspicious to me though, and I wouldn't be surprised if that $17k claim was part of all this.

Beyond this, another concern was that the area/bedroom of the home _above_ this part of the garage has a drop-off/slope as you walk from the hallway entering into the bedroom. So I don't know if this slab crack has been here for a long time and caused that amount of settling or what caused it. It'll forever be a mystery. If the seller's wouldn't have withheld information from us, we would have known by now, but a lot of things just weren't adding up for us and it didn't make sense to proceed with dishonest people at that point.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

jplee3 said:


> The property was built in 1985 or 1986. From the looks and sounds of it, I don't believe the owners _ever_ tented it - the fascias, rafter tails, and parts of the shiplap looked to be in awful condition - the termite vendor was poking holes in them all day long and was lamenting about how terrible the condition was. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're behind the walls too.
> 
> So the extent of the slab leaks that we know of were between the cold and hot water lines from the kitchen to the master bath upstairs. I guess there was a leak on that side of the home where they had to re-route PEX into the attic. I would have never known all this had I not discussed with a plumber via texting about how the general inspector verbally noted PEX in the attic - he told me if there's PEX in the attic there was a slab leak somewhere; this is what prompted us to inquire with the sellers.
> 
> ...


Hmm. Sounds like it fit my "except" scenario. 

Cracks in slabs are a common problem in clay soil (how do you think I know?) and they're not always a sign of bad construction or loss of integrity. 

Hope you found another place . . .


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## jplee3 (Jan 11, 2012)

DoomsDave said:


> Hmm. Sounds like it fit my "except" scenario.
> 
> Cracks in slabs are a common problem in clay soil (how do you think I know?) and they're not always a sign of bad construction or loss of integrity.
> 
> Hope you found another place . . .



Yea, it could have been nothing at all... but I've shown the extent of the damage to a number of others (contractors, foundation repair companies, structural engineers, other DIYers, etc) and they don't like what they see - it's not a horrible crack but it's definitely one that they were all recommending to get checked out. If it were just a crack in the slab that might be one thing but A) it extends into the foundation as you can see in the pic, and B) one side of the crack was not level with the other side. Again, it could have been nothing but this wasn't the only factor in our overall decision...
Apparently there's a natural spring/aquifer running under the entire neighborhood and they recently had to tear up part of an intersection/street just outside the neighborhood where it also flows under. And beyond that, the HOA and city have been back and forth [for at least 4-5 years now] about building more homes in the same neighborhood further up the hill. There are only two ways to both enter/exit the neighborhood. I think this might have been one of those decisions where we ultimately wouldn't have been very happy going into it and would have gotten stressed with a potential money pit and more troubles down the road - the next home we buy we are intending to be in it for at least a decade while our kids our in school. So we want to choose wisely.

The market is extremely tough right now so we may not find anything. I think we'll just have to get lucky


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

jplee3 said:


> Yea, it could have been nothing at all... but I've shown the extent of the damage to a number of others (contractors, foundation repair companies, structural engineers, other DIYers, etc) and they don't like what they see - it's not a horrible crack but it's definitely one that they were all recommending to get checked out. If it were just a crack in the slab that might be one thing but A) it extends into the foundation as you can see in the pic, and B) one side of the crack was not level with the other side. Again, it could have been nothing but this wasn't the only factor in our overall decision...
> Apparently there's a natural spring/aquifer running under the entire neighborhood and they recently had to tear up part of an intersection/street just outside the neighborhood where it also flows under. And beyond that, the HOA and city have been back and forth [for at least 4-5 years now] about building more homes in the same neighborhood further up the hill. There are only two ways to both enter/exit the neighborhood. I think this might have been one of those decisions where we ultimately wouldn't have been very happy going into it and would have gotten stressed with a potential money pit and more troubles down the road - the next home we buy we are intending to be in it for at least a decade while our kids our in school. So we want to choose wisely.
> 
> The market is extremely tough right now so we may not find anything. I think we'll just have to get lucky


Yike an HOA!

Run

Screaming (my own editorial opinion).

And natural water features!

Yeah keep looking!


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## jplee3 (Jan 11, 2012)

DoomsDave said:


> Yike an HOA!
> 
> Run
> 
> ...


lol, not sure if you live in this neighborhood, know the exact home I'm referring to, and are just being sarcastic or what. but we weren't that enamored with the home to begin with. we knew there would be some amount of fixes that it needed (based on what the sellers did disclose) and we were willing to put up with/deal with this, but it started sounding more like a money pit the further we dug.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

Here's some good local information, that you actually paid for!






Drywood Termites Management Guidelines--UC IPM


UC home and landscape guidelines for control of Drywood Termites.



 ipm.ucanr.edu


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

I told Dad they were pink! I forgot he was red/green color-blind. That would make a difference in being able to ID them. It probably depends on the color of the wood they eat.


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## jplee3 (Jan 11, 2012)

Nik333 said:


> I told Dad they were pink! I forgot he was red/green color-blind. That would make a difference in being able to ID them. It probably depends on the color of the wood they eat.


From the inspector's report lol


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

Hot Pink Frass!


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

jplee3 said:


> From the inspector's report lol


There’s definitely termites near that box.


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