There is no possible severe threat to a stacked pile of firewood than termites. This is because any sort of decaying matter is the favorite breeding ground for these tiny insects, also known as termites.
They are quite a serious threat, and if you think there is even the slightest chance of termites inhabiting your firewood, you should immediately, without any delay, take measures to counter the situation before it gets out of hand.
Supposedly, you have stored your firewood in the backyard of your house. Then instant action needs to be taken because if termites are present on the firewood, then it would be sooner than later that they would be entering your house and ruining all your finely structured and neatly carved wood.
Therefore, to assist you in getting rid of the termite problem, Surferhandy bring you an article dedicated to investigating how to treat firewood for termites!
How To Treat Firewood For Termites
Before we begin to list solutions on how to treat firewood for termites, we will start by telling you all the symptoms you might encounter that indicate a materializing termite problem.
You cannot go ahead with how to treat firewood for termites if you are not aware of how and when they occur.
Spotting termites in your firewood is not as convenient as it sounds. This is because they are not visually detectable during the first few days or even the first few weeks of creating a nest on the ground on your property.
Another factor that makes detecting termites challenging is the fact that they have the ability to burrow themselves deep into the wood that they are infesting.
Therefore, after storing your firewood in the backyard, you must be constantly alert and keep an eye out for the following symptoms:
- Every time you tap a log in the stack of firewood, it will feel hollow. If you are experienced with firewood, it will be no big deal to identify this, even when you are not. Just knowing that tapping firewood does not feel hollow will suffice too.
- Around the area where you have stored your firewood, you will see discards of wings resembling fish scales. This may not be visible, so you should try and observe a bit to ensure that you can tackle termites before they destroy your entire stack of firewood logs.
Even though these two are the prominent signs depicting an ongoing termite infestation in your firewood, rest assured they are always bound to work. However, these signs also apply to specifying termites inside the house, but there are more, so make sure not to base your conclusion only on these two points.
Solutions For How To Treat Firewood For Termites
Finally, we have arrived at the most anticipated part of our article: solutions for how to treat firewood for termites. Although we will provide you with a range of remedies to address the situation, remember that not every treatment will work, so you must always have the initiative to try more than just one solution.
Relocating The Firewood
Firewood is one of the most tempting breeding grounds for termites, so it would be no surprise to find termites infesting your firewood. Now where you have stored your firewood matters a lot as you will provide termites with an easy or difficult gateway to reaching the firewood.
If the firewood has not been stored properly and per the required measures, then you are serving the stack of your wood on a silver platter for the termites to feed on. Assumingly, have simply left your firewood on the dirty and muddy ground of your house, then for termites to reach their favorite food source will be no task.
Therefore, to avoid this, it is advisable to store the firewood responsibly and not just leave it on the ground for days until it is brought to use. Make sure to stack the firewood above the ground, for instance, 30 centimeters or one foot above the muddy ground, so the termites cannot reach the firewood conveniently.
You can always experiment with creating this space. There is no compulsion about how you stack the firewood above the ground, and you always have the option to make use of bricks, cement, or even an iron rack which will assist you by providing a distance between the platform and the firewood.
The aim here is to secure the firewood. One way was to stack it above ground. Another alternative to this method is to guard the firewood by creating a boundary around it.
Such surrounding walls around the firewood will prevent the termite and other pests from simply and directly crawling into the pile of firewood. Here we are not advising you to pour an anti-pest chemical over the firewood because if you can merely treat something, then why endure the complication?
When you burn the firewood dampened in an anti-pest chemical, it releases odorous and harmful fumes that can adversely and profoundly impact your well-being.
Ensure For The Firewood To Remain Dry
An intriguing fact about the relationship between firewood and termites is that they are more attracted to firewood when it is dampened. It does not matter if the water content on the firewood is slight or a lot; termites are more likely to infest such a stack of firewood.
Hence, if your firewood is dampened or seems dampened without giving the situation another thought, you should proceed to dry the pile out. The best and the most appropriate way to immediately dry out your wet firewood stack is to keep them under direct sunlight.
Either cut out the firewood logs into smaller pieces (with a chainsaw or any other cutter) or separate each stack log and keep them at a distance from another on the ground. This would significantly enhance the time taken to dry up the wood.
While drying firewood that has been dampened, check every log for a termite infestation, and if you spot even the slightest termite on a log, then throw that one out. You will not even know, and the termite would eventually infest other pieces too.
Throw Out Termite-Infested Firewood
In a situation whereby it has been too late to deal with termites, they have succeeded in invading your firewood. There are two options for you. One, you can throw the firewood out, and the second is to use chemicals specifically designed to treat termite-infested wood.
While both solutions are guaranteed to work, we are more oriented and in favor of you throwing the termites-infested firewood. This is because spraying chemicals will work and eliminate termites, but it can later be dangerous when burning firewood, especially in an enclosed space such as your house.
By throwing out, we do not imply separating the particular log from the rest of the stack. One way of throwing it out, or another, is to burn that log in a deserted place, ensuring that the termites cannot spread to other pieces of wood and simply kill them.
Termiticide Barriers
An easy solution for how to treat firewood for termites is to use a chemical dedicated to killing these termites. You can always opt for this solution, and it’s never too late with termiticide barriers.
Whether you have tried the abovementioned solutions or not, one way to rescue your firewood from an attack of termites is to use termiticide barriers. They are readily and easily available; however, the name for this chemical potion may differ according to the area that you live in.
By applying these conventional termite solutions for treatment to your firewood, you will be creating a barrier on your firewood against the attack of termites. Termites cannot penetrate through the chemical and feed on the firewood through the created barriers.
Even if the termites can cross the barriers created by the termiticide, they will eventually be killed when they eat the firewood. The best part about using a termiticide barrier is that it has a similar operation to the termites on a wood spread.
We know that termites spread in growing rapidly, and so is the case with the termiticide barrier that expands like a virus. When a single termites come in contact with the solution, it will, without knowing, carry it around and pass it to other termites who will be destined to face the same fate- death.
Therefore, the termite colony will be eliminated in a matter of a few hours and very rapidly.
Should I Burn Firewood With A Termite Infestation?
Does having a termite infestation on your firewood mean that it won’t serve the purpose for which you obtained it? Rephrasing our concern is to say that should I burn firewood with a termite infestation? Or even when you want to burn firewood with a termite infestation, is it a plausible idea to do so?
Even though you can burn firewood with a termite infestation, but is only recommended under certain circumstances. If you are burning the firewood for general purposes, let’s say, a casual outdoor bonfire, then the termite-infested firewood will bring you no harm, and doing so is completely fine.
We often do not even know that the firewood has been plagued with termite, yet we burn it to generate heat. However, to be more specific with our scenario, do not use termite-infested firewood for cooking.
If you do so, what will happen is that it will infect the food you are cooking with bacteria that will be transferred within your body when consumed. Not all bacteria are good for the body, so eating food made of termite-infested wood is just to welcome unnecessary bacteria into your body.
Also, if you have treated the firewood for termites using chemicals, then it is not preferred for you to burn the firewood for warmth in your house nor to burn such a log of wood for cooking.
Firewood with chemicals for killing termites has even more harmful outcomes than simply burning termite-infested wood. They will not release bacteria but toxins that are not good for the body to be inhaled and, through a chemical reaction, also hold the capacity to become poisonous.
Not only burning firewood infested with termites is harmful to you as an individual, but through this measure, you are explicitly calling the termites to infest the wood inside your house.
With all this information, it is up to your discretion whether you want to burn the firewood infested with termites or just discard the firewood. Whatever decision you make, remember to prioritize your well-being.
Conclusion
In this investigation on how to treat firewood for termites, we have given you multiple options. Now it is on you to choose the one that suits you the most, and do not forget to be quick with undertaking a measure!
