Welcome back everybody to the Home Inspection Whisperer channel. Today I'm going to try to break down termites in 10 minutes. So the first fact about termites is that they are very old. The oldest termite that we have ever found is a fossil and it is dated back to 130 million years. So they have been tormenting us for a very long time. We are going to try to cover three different types of termites today. The first termite is we're going to cover is a subterranean termite. The second one is a drywood termite and the third one is a foremost in termite. These are the three most common termites in the south. Yes, there are hundreds of different types of termites, but for my area, these are the termites that I am most familiar with. If you want to talk about any other termites, please drop it in the comment section. I am not saying I know everything. These are just most of the facts that I know to help better educate everyone on termite. So the first termite that you're going to come across is the subterranean termite. This is the most common termite that you're going to find here in the south. And it is everywhere. If you do have this termite, I really wouldn't freak out too much because this termite moves incredibly slow. So if you are buying in the south or even in the north of Texas, West Texas, anywhere in Texas, it's very common that you're going to find termites on homes. It does not mean the home is bad. It just means that, hey, you have termites. Let's treat them, kill them, repair any damage they caused and move on. It is actually just a common thing that you're going to run into whenever you're owning or buying a home. What a lot of people say is if you haven't had termites, it's just a matter of when. So there you go. That's just some kind of set your mind frame about termites and wood destroying insects. So if you do have them, how do you get rid of them? So the very first thing is the chemical that they use today is called thermidor. I believe or termidor. It's called thermidor. I believe that's how it's pronounced. If I pronounced it wrong, please correct me in the comment section. And this chemical attacks them and it kills them over a long period of time. So if you had had a pest control company come out and treat for termites and they still seem to be showing up, that is because it takes up to a few weeks to kill the whole colony. We found out if you try to kill them, they understand that they started dying in that area and then they would move to somewhere else in your property. So to kill the whole colony, they use this chemical called thermidor and it kills them the whole colony over a long period of time. So how do they install this chemical? So what they do is they find your bath traps, they dig trenches around your structure and they pour this chemical around your property. Are you going to die from it? No, it's like 0.001% toxicity to humans. It does not cause any long term effects to you. You still, if you are installing it yourself, you need to make sure that you use the proper equipment to protect yourself whenever you're treating but it does not mean that you can just go and drink it. Your pets and you and yourself, you're going to be perfectly fine. If you're not dealing with this chemical every day, you can literally walk across it and nothing will happen. So why does it work? So subterranean termites, they have to have a constant source of moisture or constant contact with ground. They're very prone to dehydration, so they need that constant source of moisture. So they're going to travel across this chemical barrier, bring it back to their queen. It constantly gets all over them and eventually the whole colony dies out. So how do you identify termites? Well, the first thing is, is you have to understand that they need a constant source of moisture, wood and shade. The reason why I like to say shade, some people say, oh no, they're not attracted to shade because they're blind or whatever. But the reason why is most commonplace where moisture stays around the longest is in the shade. So if you can limit rotted wood, heavy moisture, wood to ground contact, foliage surrounding your structure, high soil, that you are creating a barrier or a deterrence. Like I said, used to say in the Marine Corps to us all the time to deter, but you can't 100% prevent. So you want to try to remove these items around your structure. And if you understand where they like to be, this really helps you prevent termites around your structure. So subterranean termites, the best way to identify them are mud shelter tubes around your structure. So these mud shelter tubes are typically hard and a lot of people get them confused with ant tubes. Ant tubes are granular, so they're stacked up on top of each other and you can barely push on them and they fall down. The mud tubes are thicker and they typically require a little bit more effort to break. And as you break them, you find those albino type ants inside of them. Inside the termite colonies, you have the three different types of termites inside of there. You have the workers which are feeding on the wood and providing nutrients for the whole system, the whole colony. Then you have the soldiers that are typically protecting the colony and then you have the swimmers that will reproduce for the colonies and create little sub colonies of the termites. These swimmers for subterranean termites, they take two to four years to even develop. So by the time you see swimmers, you definitely want to make sure you start treating and call it professional because they've been there for a very long time. The next type of termites are the drywood termites. These drywood termites are the hardest to identify and they're even very hard for your inspectors to find. The only way to find them, it typically is through the smooth damage they cause. And the frass, which is also known as their poop, they create these little kick out flasks that you can see in this picture here in this smooth type damage. So if the homeowner is cleaning up regularly, regularly, they, it's really hard to identify them because they clean up this frass. But what you can see is these little piles of frass and that's how you identify them. There are also the smallest of colonies. There's only a few hundred of these termites in every single and they move pretty slow and they're really hard to treat for too as well because the travel is a colony through the structure. Alright, the final one is the framosin termite and the framosin termite and the subterranean termite are very similar and looks the way that you can really identify them. The easiest is the difference between the soldier of the subterranean termite and the framosin termite. Also whenever you break apart that framosin tube on the outside, this, this framosin termite mandibles are typically crossed and a subterranean termites mandibles are not. So an interesting fact about the framosin termites is they do actually do not eat a single framosin termite does not eat any more than a single subterranean termite. But the reason why framosin termite colony is more dangerous is they reproduce like a hundred times faster than a subterranean termite. So for example a subterranean termite can only take two to four years to cause some major damage and a framosin termite can take just a few months to destroy an entire structure. So the best way to identify if you have framosin termites is whenever you break up open that subterranean tube and the workers or not the workers the soldiers are actually a lot more aggressive than the subterranean termites and they'll come out to like try to attack you. So the subterranean termites typically run away and the framosin termites are a lot more aggressive whenever you open them up. The next thing that's actually the most scary part of framosin termites I bet you've been wondering what's going on right here in front of me. But this is a called a carton or a cratin. I can't really remember the exact verbiage for it. But this right here is what they can create in your wall. So a subterranean termite constantly lives in the ground and has a constant source of moisture from the ground or a leaky pipe or a leaky roof or something. A framosin termite can build this in the wall and travel with moisture and create this. This is actually used to be an old piece of insulation. My neighbor got hit by framosin termites and his home was only a few years old and we don't we think they came in with the molds or something and they create these cartons in the wall. These cartons is just like a sub colony for them and they can move even faster. They moved all the way up to the third story of his structure very quickly and caused a significant amount of damage. We had they had to rip down the entire side of the structure. This two by four right here was at the base and you can see how flimsy it is and this is the amount of damage they caused in just a few months. So if you have framosin termites this is no joke and most insurance companies will not cover for most in termites or termite damage. This is outside your policy so it might be something to check up on. So that is a 10 minute crash course termites. Again, you cannot cover everything in termites in 10 minutes, but I did my best to help try to help you identify termites or understand more about termites in 10 minutes. If you like this type of content, please smash that like button and subscribe and help support the YouTube channel. Alright, thanks guys. Catch us on the next one. Bye.