Rick from Niceville, Fl writes
I am trying to decide how I will treat the header of our house for Formosan termite attacks. We have what one contractor called a conducive condition in that he believes that the insulation wrapping our house is not a sufficient moisture barrier. This was the excuse used by Terminix to not fully cover damage. Lord willing, I will inject each wall void with BoraCare as a foam, which brings up another question: How do I calculate the required volume of BoaraCare foam to fill the voids? In other words, how much expansion should I anticipate per say gallon of 1:1 mix of BoraCare with ProFoam? I will be using a Chapin 1 gallon foamer - all supplies have been purchased from you all already. Another question: I read somewhere where one can place inserts in wood that can the used to inject termiticides, BoraCare (NOT as a foam, but as aqueous mix). I did not find them on your site. Maybe they are not necessary, but I wonder if they would make it neater for application. I realize that this drilling in to header from inside the house (brick outside beyond the wood framing), but this place (Bluewater Bay, in Niceville, FL) is horrible- ~$21,000 damage last year, maybe the same this year. We have had a new roof put a couple of weeks ago. I purchased a Termatrac T3i and have used that successfully to find an infestation that I have some professionals treating (not Terminix, of course- we learned about them the hard way).
I'm going to try and answer this as simply as possible but if any of it doesnt make sense please call in as it may be easier to explain over the phone. If you use boracare, in either its liquid or foam form and appy it to raw natural wood, it will absorb into the wood, become one with the wood, and last for the life of the wood. This means one proper application of Boracare will eliminate any termites currently in the wood and protect it from any future termite infestations for the life of the wood. Basicaly if a colony comes along in the future and tries to start taking up residence in a piece you have thoroughly treated with Boracare, it will die once it starts consuming the wood and ingesting the Boracare. Active infesatation rate is 1:1, preventative is 5:1. If you choose to foam you would want to use about 4 ounces of the Pro Foam concentrate to each gallon of mixture in the Chapin foamer of Boracare and water. That is a good rate for an even expansion. That being said, you should not be trying to fill the entire void. No exterminator would do that or even consider doing that even if you wanted to pay them to. The proper way to do it is to drill holes on either side of any stud, frame, or header and allow the foam to run down the sides of the wood and absorb in and expand as close to the wood as possible. You want it to aborb into the wood, not the insulation. Also, I am not aware of any inserts like what you mentioned on the market.
Answer last updated on: 11/10/2014
