Yes, after the Bora-Care has dried, you can sand and finish the wood. It usually takes 24-48 hours to fully dry.
Bora-Care will remain for the life of the treated wood, so no retreatments are necessary.
The best way to protect yourself when using any type of insecticide is to read and follow the product label. Page 2 of the Termidor SC product label? specifically tells you what precautions need to be taken before, during and after the application. You only need to wear a face mask if you will be doing the application in a poorly ventilated or enclosed area. All other applications will require you to wear long sleeves, long pants, shoes and socks and gloves. Be sure to wash your hands after the application before you eat, drink, chew gum or use the restroom.
For treating termites in an attic space, Bora-Care is the go to product. Bora-Care is a wood treatment product that you can apply directly on the wood in the attic. Bora-Care can be applied to any wood that is not painted, stained, or sealed. Bora-Care will penetrate directly into the wood and kill the termites in the wood and also protect it long term. Your only option in an attic space is to treat the termites directly.
Both ?Termidor SC? (fipronil for termites) and Bora-Care? will work, but Bora-Care? is typically the better one to use for this situation. Termidor SC? is not a wood treatment product, so for it to work you have to drill holes EXACTLY where the termites are and it has to touch the termites to work. If you miss where they are, it will not work. Also, Termidor SC? does not really have any residual in the wood, so after you treat inside the wood with Termidor SC and it dries, that wood is exposed for future termite and beetle infestations.
Boracare is an excellent option for use on raw wood for termites and other wood boring insects. The mixing ratio for prevention is 5:1, meaning you will use 5 gallons of hot water with 1 gallon of Boracare. This can either be sprayed on or painted on. If you are using a sprayer, be sure to use another container to mix the product first and then put it inside of your sprayer. It is recommended that you use a sealant or paint on the wood after the product has dried completely. It will last for the life of the wood and seal the product inside so that irrigation from outdoors will not wash the product out of the wood.
If you have wood that you want to treat that is not already treated, painted, stained, etc., then you can apply paint, water sealant, or stain as long as a Boracare or Timbor treatment is dry. For Boracare you will usually need to wait at least 24 hours to make sure the application is completely dry. If you are treating wood that will be outside or otherwise exposed to rain and sunlight, then you should apply a water sealant to prevent the Boracare from breaking down over time.
Since you have droppings then that means dry wood termites is your issue and you probably live in CA or FL. If you see droppings then there are "kick out"holes which you should be able to find on the wood where the termites that are inside the wood are kicking out their pellets onto the floor. This will help you zero in on the wood that you are treating.
Bora-Care is usually the preferred choice if most of the wood is exposed and it is raw wood you are treating, meaning it is not painted, stained, or sealed, it is just normal wood. Bora-Care is made only for wood, and you do not have to know exactly where the termites are for it to work which is a plus. Bora-Care is sprayed evenly over all exposed surfaces of the wood and actually penetrates through the entire piece of wood. When the termites in the wood try to consume the wood after it has been treated, they ingest the Bora-Care with the wood and die. No matter where they are in the wood the Bora-Care will find them as long as you treated the exposed wood that you can see. The other main benefit is that Bora-Care stays in the wood forever, so you will not have to worry about termites or beetles infesting the wood that you treated ever again.
It is important to keep pets and/or animals out of the area while Boracare is being applied. Once the product has dried completey, it is safe for individuals or pets to return to the area.
No, there are no fumes that will come out of a crawl space.
Yes, Boracare can (and in many instances MUST) be used on pressure treated wood. As a termite barrier under Section VI of the label it is required to be applied twice to exterior wall sill plate and that is always pressuretreated.
All pressure treated wood that is cut or drilled MUST have a field treatment or end cut application in order to meet building code (including sill plate in a home - see IRC 2016 and AWPA Standard M4).
It is also useful to treat pressure treated wood as the heartwood is not treated properly by pressure treatment (especially refractory species such as Douglas fir, and the transition wood of pine decking is often the first to rot out and will greatly benefit from a treatment with Boracare with Moldcare at 5 years (see Lloyd et al., 2013).
Posts, piles and poles also have the heartwood issue and can be treated but this is often best done with Jecta.
