Carpenter Ants - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

LNG24 · 04-27-2007, 08:49 PM

I should have taken a picture or two, but I had this job yesterday to fix a shed door that was attached to the main house. When I looked at it, I told the Homeowner...You need more than a fix...The entire Header and both the king and jack stud were devoured! Nothing left but dust.

I thought the ants had moved on until demo or DUST REMOVAL

But I found the buggers starting on the opposite Jack Stud. Pourd Amonia on them as I didn't have anything else.

Think that worked??

dougchips · 04-27-2007, 09:42 PM

I would hope so!

A few years ago I was doing a porch remodel that had a ton of them. After the first day I asked the HO to get a pest guy out to kill them. When I showed up after a few days they were all over the place. This went on 3 times, he hired someone to come out and the things never died. Finally the HO went to the supermarket and bought something that killed them while we watch.

I use to carry some nasty spray stuff on the truck that would kill them but the product caused rashes so I stay away from it now.

Another porch remodel had tons of them in the beams, they were all over me and my helper. At lunch we went to a local diner where they decided to crawl out of our sleeves and all over the counter---people were freaking out. We finished our meal and never ate there again (who would want to eat at a place with bugs!)

**Ed the Roofer** · 04-27-2007, 11:35 PM

I had a garage about eight years ago, that once we removed the aluminum fascia, you could see the entire colony and all of their tunnels.

It looked as if we set it up like one of those ant colony things sandwiched between two sides of plexiglass.

They were all scurrying around to move the larvae to safer hidden grounds. We keep ant powder in stock, because less intense colonies can be found quite often.

It sucks for the guy nailing down the new plywood over the powder though. The air shoots it all over the place.

Ed

SuperiorBuilt · 06-08-2007, 10:57 PM

I once worked with a GC on a rental property many years back. The Gc goes to pull the plywood soffit down. As he pulls on the plywood, a ton of carpenter ants covered him. This brings new meaning to ants in your pants

duckdown · 01-04-2009, 08:15 AM

Anyone ever considered putting in walls before hanging rock, those ant traps they sell at Walmart?

Burby · 01-04-2009, 09:26 AM

With Carpenter ants, once the moisture intrusion & decay problem are both repaired, the ants will go away & stay gone.
And yup them lil buggers do bite harder than those lil no seeums at the dune line on the beach when the sun first goes down or just just prior to rising..

Snobnd · 01-04-2009, 10:37 AM

I removed a window for replacement, and I did get covered from the little suckers. I think it was over 500 to 600. I had to run inside and put tyvek over the hole so they could not enter the house.

LNG24 · 01-04-2009, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by duckdown

Anyone ever considered putting in walls before hanging rock, those ant traps they sell at Walmart?

No, but I have sprayed the wood with Ant Poison before sealing it up. Did that when I was moving an In Wall AC unit. As soon as I opened the wall, they were running everywhere. I vacuumed them up then dumped the vacuum contents far from the site. I ended up tearing out 12 linear feet of wall until I didn't see anymore. We sprayed all the wood before sealing it back up just to be safe. They hired a Pest Control company afterwords.

FYI: AC unit was leaking into the wall. Good thing they wanted us to move it.

MALCO.New.York · 01-04-2009, 05:01 PM

Heavily soap laden water works as well.

envirocare · 01-14-2009, 08:26 PM

Just by killing the worker ants will not resolve the situation. You need to find the nest to permanently get rid of the problem.

Dutch1962 · 05-13-2009, 09:40 PM

Karl is right and Carpenter ants also have several sattelite colonies that may move back in after you've killed the few members of their family.

Dutch1962 · 05-13-2009, 09:45 PM

PS. Nice pics

envirocare · 05-13-2009, 11:27 PM

Thanks Dutch1962, have you ever heard of using salt? I heard salt will also kill them cause they take the salt back to the colony and die of thirst. Might need to try this as a experiment sometime.

naptown CR · 05-13-2009, 11:53 PM

I rented a vacation house in Maine once right at the end of a long dry spell. Came back one night and there were literally thousands of them crawling around the floor. I figured that everything dried out enough that there wasn't enough moisture left in the wood and they were looking for a drink. I did save the liquor. ended up spraying raid along the entire perimeter to keep them from coming upstairs to the bedrooms and bothering us in bed that night. I called the owner who decided that it was not a big deal and wouldn't do anything about it. I ended up hosing the bejesus out of the siding and trim so they would go back into the walls. worked while we were there but probably not the right thing to do.

AmeliaP · 07-29-2009, 11:52 AM

I'm having a problem with this. After treating around the foundation they are actually worse......must be a nest in the walls. Basement is super clean of them. We've been renovating down there and I didn't see 1.

Warren · 07-29-2009, 04:24 PM

Pulled out an old sliding door once and the outside ply of the header was just dust. They didn't go through the plywood spacer though. When I first pulled off the wall sheathing, the ants started swarming out. I had my shop vac ready and started devouring them. Must have been a few thousand. At one point, they were coming out faster than I could suck them up. After about 5 minutes they were down to just a few scattered singles.