With the fast moving property market around Taree, Forster and Gloucester it is easy to overlook things when buying your home. A full timber pest inspection is vital to ensuring you have a wholistic view of a property before purchase. Beware, saving a small amount of money here could cost you alot!
The purchase of a house is, for most, the single biggest financial transaction undertaken in one’s lifetime. With this said it is easy to see why you need to know what you are buying. A timber pest inspection is vital for your own knowledge and should be conducted by a qualified, experienced Expert with a thorough working knowledge of timber pests and the Local area. A timber pest inspection should report on many things, including but not limited to, subterranean termites, dampwood termites, fungal wood decay, borers which damage timbers in use and give recommendations on ways to reduce the susceptibility of the structure to attack from timber pests.
Once you have bought the property it should not be forgotten about. The Australian Standards recommend a full termite inspection is conducted no less than annually.
Facts:
• Thermal imagery is used as a marketing tool more regularly than a termite finding tool. Thermal imagery is, by definition, an image of the surface temperate of an item. Subterranean termites will generally create their own climate and humidity within their workings. However, this does not necessarily change the surface temperature of the area inspected and other factors may conceal this temperature change.
• A moisture meter is a tool used to measure the moisture content of an item. This is not a termite finder. It will indicate areas with higher than regular moisture content often associated with subterranean termite workings and fungi which decay timber. If a higher than usual moisture content is located further investigations are often required.
• A cavity brick, steel or treated timber framed house with concrete slab flooring is still very susceptible to attack from subterranean termites and other timber pests. While these building methods may reduce the amount of possible damage to the structure there is often a lot of other building materials which can cost serious money to replace. In fact, a concrete slab flooring often provides numerous concealed ingress points where subterranean termites can gain access to the structure without being noticed.
• Termimesh and other physical termite management systems DO NOT stop subterranean termites from gaining access to a structure and are designed to force them to work through an inspection zone in which their activity will be readily identified.
If you find termites it is important to know what to do. STOP, don’t panic and DON’T spray them. Call your Local Pest Expert.