"Inadequate" Ant Capping

Ant capping is barrier that prevents termites from being able to get into a building undetected, this is generally made of a strip of galvanised metal shielding. It's very purpose is not to stop termites completely, but to give them some sort of obstruction so that they have to build a mud shelter tube to go around. 

These can often be overlooked and forgotten about when renovations take place, repairs or changes are made to the existing building and sometimes can just rot away without anyone noticing.

The ant capping metal shield with it's inspection edge being completely covered by a cover strip.

This ant cap was not joined properly during construction, and to add to the potential problems, is clearly rusting away.

An addition to this property has resulted in the ant capping being compromised, you can clearly see that the ant cap does not completely cover the new vertical cover strip, causing an easy passage for termites to get in undetected.

Vertical Transitions such as this one, are a commonplace entry point for termites.

This photo clearly demonstrates a vertical transition where the ant capping is not joined, for the ant capping to be effective both the lower and upper sections of ant capping need to be joined in the middle to form a continuous barrier. In this particular case, it was virtually impossible to visually inspect between the two levels as there was poor access. That's why it's important to get it right during the construction phase.

Drilling & Injecting

Drilling concrete slabs and injecting chemical is one of the ways to protect a property from termites, and then there are obviously variations of those treatment methods depending on the type of construction and requirements of the treatment. However, there have to be a few specifications met to ensure it is done correctly. Here we will highlight a few for you to consider.

Hole Spacings! When holes are drilled to inject termiticide under a concrete slab to treat the footing of a wall, the holes cannot be more than 150mm from the wall. This home had holes exceeding 300mm. Needless to say, the original treatment failed and the home was re infested. 

Injecting Termidor under a slab.

Holes are often drilled around a perimeter to ensure a complete chemical barrier to prevent termites getting in.

Hole spacings on this property exceeded 300mm! Once again, they were beyond specification, holes should be between 150-300mm apart. The greater tolerance is reserved for porous soil types and rarely used in our practice. Ironically this was done on an internal wall that was a 

Once again, hole spacing was beyond specification. More examples below.... 

Termite Hazard map.

We often get asked if a particular suburb has ha high incidence of termite activity. I often have to explain that most areas are! If you look at this map you'll notice that a lot of the highly populated areas of Australia are also zones with high environmental termite pressure!

How ant capping keeps termites out of a building.

Ant Capping is designed to prevent undetected termite entry.

As with all termite management systems, they are primarily designed to force termites out in the open so they can be easily detected during an inspection, or to deter their entry. For these systems to work effectively, 2 conditions must be met:

1. The physical barrier system needs to be complete, covering all entry points and forming a continuous barrier around the perimeter of the building.
2. The property needs to be regularly inspected to ensure that the system is working correctly and there are no termites trying to infest the property.

Check the following photos that identify common problems with ant capping.

The termites have built a large mud shelter tube under this ant cap, but then you see them mysteriously appear in the timber above the ant cap! If this capping was a continuous barrier for the full width of the brick, they would have to build their mud shelter tube OVER the ant cap.

This explains why termites get in without being seen -  the ant capping does not cover the full width of the brick! This does not meet the Australian standard for termite protection.

This ant capping was only partially existent, with an inspection edge that goes off into oblivion. It was not able to prevent the termites getting in a chewing out this frame.  

The ant cap on this wall ends up butting up to a timber frame, there's no inspection edge and no surprises the termites got in. 

This is the most common failing of ant capping, failing to form a continuous barrier when there is a vertical transition, nothing is preventing the termites coming up between the two piers and into the lower bearer, and it would not be visible until it's too late.  

It's abandoned - termite bait stations!

Termite bait stations can be a very effective method of controlling termites, but only if the system is maintained. More often than not, a building with bait stations has an infestation due to a lack of proper maintenance of the perimeter baiting system. It's not uncommon for us to be called to a house with an infestation that already had a perimeter bait station monitoring system in place. When we check the bait stations, the attractant wood has been eaten out long ago......

So what can be done?

Well, the safest thing is to make sure that you have a reputable pest controller monitoring the bait stations, this may seem costly but it is so much cheaper than dealing with an infestation and subsequent damage.

Failing that, it may be prudent to check the bait stations yourself. At least something is being done to monitor termite activity, if you find termites, then you can call a pest controller (The Termite Trackers!) to eradicate the colony.

This bait station is far from effective as it is protruding significantly, the top should be flush with ground level.

This bait station was very close by to an termite entry point on a house, as you can see the termites have already eaten most of the wood out before abandoning it.

A Sentricon bait station graveyard, these bait stations were monitored for a while but have now been abandoned....

this bait station hadn't been checked for years....