Woodworm treatment

wamadam

I'm buying a house which has previously had a full chemical floor treatment against common furniture beetle applied to one room downstairs following infestation. That was in 1986.

There was a 30-year guarantee on that room but the firm has since gone out of business.

I've just had the whole house checked by a woodworm specialist.

They say they can see evidence of an infestation in that same room but that they can't tell for certain if that's from the previous incidence or if it's an active infestation.

Reading between the lines I think they are noting evidence of the previous infestation.

They are offering to spray the whole of the downstairs (£400)/or the whole house (£600) for peace of mind with a 30-year guarantee.

How likely is it that woodworm will return to the same room?

Do I need to get any treatments done?

jayship

Seek second opinion and probably a few more. If not satisfied pull out some floor boards and see for yourself.

wamadam

Thanks Jayship.

What does anyone else think?

muskoka

WE purchased a house Dec 2010 and found signs of woodworm only when we starting stripping skirting boards. We got a specialist in who advised us to dig deeper (which we did & found lots of old woodworm and undoubtably active woodworm). We ended up replacing various joists/floors throughout the whole house, but 1) we are glad we paid a specialist to come in who sold us the treatment & told us what to do ourselves and 2) we're glad to dug deeper & found the woodworm as if we hadn't the worm would still be munching away.

For example we found definite live woodworm (joist had gone to powder almost, yet there was little sign of it in the boards direct above this joist)

We have now treated the whole house with Sulogard (you can buy online, though we got ours from specialist) and we are confident we got it all! But my god, it was such a lot of work. We did all the treatment ourselves and for a large 3 bed double fronted semi, it cost about £150 in total for treatment plus replacement timbers which are pretty cheap. I spoke to treatment manufacturers also who said treatment is good for 25 years, in that we'd be wasting our time doing it every few years if we weree confident we got it all.

Specialist told us to go to B & Q & buy a £15 sprayer with a wand & mix the treatment up & treat accordingly.

I happen to know my next door neighbour also found some small traces of woodworm when he purchased (2007), but decided to treat small area & hope for the best.

Woodworm comes up, so whatever you can see there could be more underneath.

docmatt

Do what thingy said above and spray it yourself. I did my house, did about 6 coats (a bit ott I know!) It was really bad and I think the worms are quite dead now

wamadam

Interesting stuff.

Do you have to lift the floorboards to spray underneath. Is this a big job?

Also, I can't find any other reference to Sulogard online.

Many thanks.

muskoka

http://www.agwoodcare.co.uk/prod/soluguard_woodworm_treatment_concentrate.html

This is the stuff, though is not where we purchased from.

To treat for woodworm, we were told to lift 2 floorboard every 4 floorboards & spray (using the wand) all around underneath. However, we ended up lifting every single floorboard & visibaly checking joists & replacing as necessary.

ALSO, we purchased a chemical filter mask from Screwfix to use whilst we were spraying. We were lucky house was empty and straight after we sprayed we left the house.

I am NO woodworm expert, only telling it how we dealt with it.

Ya, it was a real poxy big job, but deal with it room by room - so its lots of little projects instead of one big project.

From THINGY!

docmatt

Good advice from thingy

Elton

I was also considering treating a minor woodworm infestation myself. But I'm now probably going to get a professional company to carry out the treatment as they'll carry out a complete treatment to the ground floor of my house (there are no signs of woodworm anywhere else) for approx. £200. I could probably save about £100 by doing the work myself, but lifting floorboards etc... is a hassle and I wouldn't get a guarantee (which will probably be required if I sell the house).#

With regard to the original question, I think you can stick paper over affected areas to see if the woodworm is still is active. If you leave the paper stuck to the wood for several months and you get holes in the paper the woodworm is still active.

Elton

P.S. - this is a very useful blog post on the subject - http://www.preservationexpert.co.uk/common-furniture-beetle-woodworm-infestation-quick-guide-for-consumers-and-surveyors-too/

rabialiones

Elton wrote: »

I was also considering treating a minor woodworm infestation myself. But I'm now probably going to get a professional company to carry out the treatment as they'll carry out a complete treatment to the ground floor of my house (there are no signs of woodworm anywhere else) for approx. £200. I could probably save about £100 by doing the work myself, but lifting floorboards etc... is a hassle and I wouldn't get a guarantee (which will probably be required if I sell the house).#

With regard to the original question, I think you can stick paper over affected areas to see if the woodworm is still is active. If you leave the paper stuck to the wood for several months and you get holes in the paper the woodworm is still active.

hi, just looking thru posts , as need treatment, could you please let me know which companies treat for that price as rentokil have quoted about 10 grand
thanks