Carpenter ants and termites

[Hueso]

Oddly enough, after a couple of hundreds of dollars of buying SINTRA (pvc) to make my B31 termite prof, the only wood left in the boat and the foam like structure where the fuel tank rests, serves as the hotel for termites and carpenter ants in my boat.....an exterminator checked the boat and said it isn't that bad but that he will call me tomorrow with a "number" after he ascertains the price of the products to be used to exterminate both......faithfull, any of you with that problem and how you fixed it......probably those from coonass land have some experience....help before they start biting on the fiberglass.....

[Tony Meola]

Huesso

Not sure how they got in the boat, pretty strange. Go online to www.epestsupply.com. They sell capentar ant baits and chemicals to kill termites. In a boat, due to the environment, I would lean toward a borax based killer for the termites. You spray all the wood with it and they will not eat it.

For carpentar ants you need to kill the queen so if you are going to spray, you need to find the nest, otherwise you are wasting your time. With the bait, they take it back to the nest and feed it to the others.

I would worry about the carpentar ants more than the termites. The ants work faster. Also, and this is pretty hard to do on a boat, get rid of the water and dry everything out and that might solve the problem also.

Good luck. Don't worry, I don't think they eat fiberglass.

[RAWicklund]

I've used Talstar pesticide to kill and control termites with great results.(But never on a boat). The Borax based treatments prevent future damage from termites but don't kill the resident bugs.

I've seen where the termites bored thru PVC tubing in search of food.

They had a hot tub at a house I purchased with termites. The termites must have bored 200 holes in the spaflex tubing in search of food.

Carpenter ants don't eat wood and usually just identify water problems and decayed wood in houses.

But any wood on a boat would be fair game I would guess.

[Rawleigh]

Timbor or other Borate based product should work well. Mix them with water in a garden sprayer and coat all of the wood. It crystallizes like sugar water on the wood. It also kills rot spores. It is water based, so it will wash off if you hit it directly with water. It is the most environmentally friendly approach. It is harmless to humans. It kills the microbes in the termite and ant's guts that they need to digest the cellulose. It also works on powderpost bettles, woodborers, etc. You can inject wood that is rotten before epoxying it. If any water does get behind the epoxy it dissolves the borate and kills any rot spores. The borate should also soak into the foam around the tank.

http://www.borax.com/wood/

http://www.borax.com/borates2g.html

http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/timbor.htm