Localized Treatments for Termites with Terry Singleton, TermiteTerry.com

By Sean Sloan | March 27, 2014 | Comments Off on Localized Treatments for Termites with Terry Singleton, TermiteTerry.com

Pest Control Service by Termite Terry Singleton - TermiteTerry.com

Pest Control Service by Termite Terry Singleton – TermiteTerry.com

Terry Singleton: Termites in Orange County are are a really big problem. And I’d like to talk about the termite treatments. The first thing, I’m going to show this one piece here. You can see that it’s heavily damaged. JT will tell you that a lot of his paint jobs start off like this. They want to paint their house, but of course when it’s this badly damaged, it’s hard to do. Or when someone puts up Christmas lights and the staples won’t stay in. At that point people realize they have a problem. And they have a lot of options.

Now, if you read the Orange County Register you’ll see full page ads similar to this in there, almost every day of the week, advertising that you can have your house treated with orange oil or some kind of foam solution, and all your problems will go away. You don’t have to move out of your house. In some cases that may be true. But let’s take a look at this so when you are out there talking to you friends or neighbors, and they discuss this, you’ll be able to answer some of their questions and steer them in the right direction.

So, let’s say, for instance, that we wanted to do a localized treatment on our house. I know it’s hard to see from the back of the room, but in this pice of wood here we’ve drilled holes in a diamond pattern, with about three inch spacing. What you do is you take the device like this. You insert the device into the hole. And you pull the trigger and let it set for about 15 seconds per hole. But there are limitations to how well that works. First of all, you’re going to have to drill a lot of holes all the way around your house. Of course, JT can wipe more for him to patch and paint.

Business Growth Innovators Member: Make as many holes as you want.

Terry Singleton: That’s right. But then you have to ask yourself “how effective is that?” Well, in this piece of wood here I’ll demonstrate that. It’s just a 2×4. We drilled two small holes here. We injected it at 30 pound pressure for 30 seconds. Now, for this test purpose here we added a green dye to the solution so that you can see how far it transfers. So, if I inject it in to these two holes, hold it for 30 seconds, how far do you think it travels in the wood?

Business Growth Innovators Member: Yeah, eight of an inch, quarter inch. I don’t know —

Terry Singleton: Well as you can see here, not very far at all. Maybe about a quarter of an inch. So, just in this one piece of wood, how many holes would you have to drill to get total coverage?

Business Growth Innovators Member: They could just take the wood out.

Terry Singleton: You’d have to do a lot of holes. It would take a lot of effort. So, whenever you’re going to recommend a treatment, you’ve got to consider that. Now, I know that a lot of folks are asking about orange oil. How does that work? Well, orange oil, if you spray it directly on a termite, will kill it immediately. There’s no doubt about that.

The problem is that we have is that the orange oil solution only lasts about two or three days. Stain studies have proven that after two or three days termites can return to the same location and start eating again. So, rather than doing that, if you are going to do a localized treatment, I strongly recommend using a product like Termidor. This, if injected in to wood, will last maybe up to two years in an enclosed area. And it also has the bonus of any time a termite is exposed to it, they can bring it back to the colony and eventually kill off the whole colony.

It’s sort of a domino effect. So, if you’re going to do that, that’s what I would recommend. Very expensive to do but good treatment like this. Imagine how labor intensive it is to drill holes in every piece of wood in this whole structure.

One other point, too, talking about this structure or a lot of homes, if you’ll just look around the room there isn’t that much wood exposed. You can’t see it. How could you possibly identify a problem and treat it? Yeah, on most houses, 95% of the wood is inaccessible. So there are serious limits to how well it would work.

Another you’ll see advertised are foam treatments. They’re saying that you can have you home treated with foam and solve all your problems. Well, in this prop here, this is just another 2×4. We applied this foam solution all the way around. Big thick globs. Looks like shaving cream. Let it set overnight and dry. And just to make sure it was super effective, because they tell us the wood soaks it up like a sponge, we gave it one more dose and let it set overnight. We sawed the wood in half, how far do you think it penetrated?

Business Growth Innovators Member: An eight of an inch. Couldn’t even penetrate the skin.

Terry Singleton: Still thicker than paint. So, if again, if a termite were to land on the outside here, yes, it may die. But if the termites are living on the inside of the core like in this piece of wood, as you can see they’re clearly not affected.

Now, talking about the foam treatments, I’d like to go one step further and demonstrate how they work in a real home. This is a foam solution here. By the way ladies and gentlemen, this is just water I’ve got in here. We don’t have the actual ingredient. This empty cup. And as you can see it fills up the cup pretty quickly. Looks like an Orange Julius. So, when they’re doing foam treatments on homes, what they’ll do is they’ll drill typically one hole between the studs like this.

And the idea is that once you put it in here, it’s going to spray all around, coat all the wood. Give it permanent protection. Comes with a two year warranty. The companies are “reputable” that sell this service. Again, they’ve got full page ads in the paper. In the phonebook, big websites, right? You think that this would be a good option. I’m going to insert this wand in here. And you saw how fast it filled up the cup. Here we are. We’re going full blast. I’m going to rotate it around here. And we’re really going to soak this thing, all right?

Business Growth Innovators Member: Sounds like water.

Terry Singleton: Let’s do it one more time because I really want to kill all the termites. Here we are. We’re really doing a good job here. Taking our time, Going all the way around. Okay. Should be plastered, right?

Business Growth Innovators Member: Sure.

Terry Singleton: Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see there’s one wet spot in the center. Pull out the insulation.

Business Growth Innovators Member: All the wood is dry.

Terry Singleton: There’s not one drop of insecticide anywhere touching the wood.

Business Growth Innovators Member: Ripoff.

Terry Singleton: Would you pay $2500 or $3000 to have you entire home done this way?

Business Growth Innovators Member: No.

Business Growth Innovators Member: Absoutely.

Terry Singleton: People do it every single day of the week. So, when you’re out there dealing with you friends and neighbors and they discuss this, please remember this demonstration. Now let’s be fair about this. If you were going to try to do this correctly, you would have to drill holes here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, get a coat hanger or some other metal road, pull the insulation back and then apply it. But then, I want you to imagine trying to do this entire room with that. How many thousands of holes would have to be drilled?

Business Growth Innovators Member: That’s Okay.

Terry Singleton: John Thomas would love it. But even if you did, but back to this. Even if you did coat it thoroughly, how much good would it really do?

Business Growth Innovators Member: The thickness of the skin.

Terry Singleton: We’re passing that one book around the room. Take a look at that and you’ll see some of our work. We strongly recommend fumigations. Here’s the basic rule of thumb: if you’ve got one or two spots in the house where the wood is accessible, and we can do a thorough drilling like this. It’s accessible on all four sides, we can inject it. The treatment will probably be pretty effective and it’ll help you out. Solve your problem. But if they start getting in to three or more locations around the structure, or if the wood extends into inaccessible areas such as the ceiling, or a wall that’s covered by drywall, at that point fumigation is your alternative.

When we fumigate homes, the big secret there is to measure it out accurately so you’ll administer the proper dosage of fumigant. We seal it up. We also use a monitoring device to verify that the tent was sealed. We can tell you how much gas is still left in the house after the fumigation process has been completed. At that point you verify it. You know that it’s been affected.

And that’s why at Termite Terry we’ll give you a two year, money back guarantee on all our fumigations. If you find a colony of live drywood termites anywhere within the structure within two years, we’ll come back and refumigate it free. And then we will write a check and refund every penny you paid for the job. That’s incredible, isn’t it? But if you do it the right way, there’s no risk. I look at the gage before we pull off the circus tent.

We’ve got plenty of guests in there. And there’s nothing to worry about. It’s the guys that cut corners, put in a half a tank of gas, or use an old raggedy trash bag. Again, while they’re passing the book around, take a look. You’ll se how we do it. How we monitor it. And you’ll also see another couple of nice shots in the back. You have tile roofs, so if your neighbors are really concerned about tile roofs, you’ll see how we put plywood down with foam rubber on it to walk on. And we also wear foam shoes. I can’t promise you we’ll keep every tile on your house from breaking, but we try to keep it at a very, very minimal level for you. Any questions? Kathy!

Business Growth Innovators Member: How does the gas kill the termites if you don’t drill any holes?

Terry Singleton: Excellent question. People ask me that all the time. All right, first of all, a termite is a living insect, right? It has to breathe. Right? So, if air goes in there, my gas will go in there as well. That’s the logic we go by there. Any other questions? Shelia.

Business Growth Innovators Member: No questions. But I need to say, ready everybody? I’m so excited about this weekend. I’m going on vacation for the first time in years with my husband, because Terry’s paying the bill. Thank you Terry!

Business Growth Innovators Member: That’s right. Any one that would like to go on vacation, sign up to have your home fumigated this month. And I’ll put you in with the coast of Ramada Inn for two nights! All right. Thank you.

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should call “Termite” Terry:

Over FOURTEEN YEARS of doing termite inspections on residential and commercial properties. Real estate inspection expert – Over 400 MILLION DOLLARS worth of real estate has been sold using “Termite” Terry’s inspections, treatments and repairs. California State Branch 1 Field Rep California State Branch 2 Operator’s license California State Branch 3 Operator’s license Department of Agriculture QAL licenses #A & B We service Orange County, California. Our company provides a full line of termite treatments and fumigations. We also have carpenters on staff to do your wood repairs (no subcontractors).

949.378.4128
www.termiteterry.com
e-mail@termiteterry.com