termites

Hello all ! I have a 1997 Sunbird with OMC hull and have recently discovered a termite infestation that has destroyed the wood in the back 2 storage compartments. I also found a "nest" in the upper corner of the inner transom wall. The inner transom fiberglass appears sturdy with no soft spots anywhere. My questions are A) how do I tell if the transom is wood or composite, B) if the transom is wood with fiberglass covering, how do I tell if the termites have invaded the wood and C) anything great to kill these termites? We saturated with a solution from the hardware store last week and still found live ones today.

thanks for any advice !!

PS The boat is in South Louisiana so we not only have the subterranean termites, but also the super evil, and hard to get rid of, Formosins!

Re: termites

man, that's the saddest first post i've ever read. sorry to hear yer woes man..... here's what i think i know about termites. i had them in my house when i first got it.... so got a termite man out. from talking with them, they laid a barrier around my house(drilled holes in the basement floor to inject the poision into) with poiseon. what kind i don't know. but anyways, the termites eat yer house (yer boat), and then they transport yer house(food) out to where the termites live in the ground by your house. to get to their nest, they must cross the barrier of poison and thats what rids yer house of termites. oh, and the neighbor had their house treated right after me as after the termites can't get in and out of my house for food, they go look for somewhere else to snack on, like the neighbors house......
if ya know ya gottem in yer upper transom..... man, i don't know, i'd have to be real worried that they got into the transom as well. most older boats have wood transoms. i suppose ya could drill a test hole somewhere to find out if ya got wood or not... good luck man....hope someone has an answer for ya...

Re: termites

Termites do not like salty wood. Put in salt boxes on exposed wood and drill and plug on the transom. Hopefully you can saturate the transom wood fast enough to kill the beggers. If you can, you will also kill all of the dry rot.

I learned this from some Mobile fishermen after I ignored Chapelle's written advice of over 80 years ago. Come to think of it, Joshua Sloecum also gave the same recomendations in his writings. I guess those of us with wood in our hulls need to learn again the truthes of old.

If you like modern fixes, then Cuprinol or any other commercial preperation of copper napthenate will quickly dispatch the little wood eaters.

Good luck and act quickly.

Re: termites

yours is not the first to get termites, it just shows that there is moisture in the boat. sunbirds have wooden cores. the termites do not go back to the ground for moisture, once the find another source. like if the get the the roof of a house, there is condensation, and they stay there and eat.

Re: termites

I agree with TD,termites and carpenter ants love wet rotting transoms.
I went through the same thing with the big black carpenter ants.I was getting ready to replace the transom anyway but found several thousand of them in the bilge and back storage compartments.It took 3 times spraying the inside of the boat to get rid of them.I now keep a close eye on the boat for any insects.At least my transom is now composite.

Re: termites

Your in a boater worse nightmare, but it is not the chicken or the egg dilemma. If you have dry wood termites, it is because your wood is shot. Termites don't usually eat good wood.

There is a product I've used the plasticizes dry rotted wood, but you are back to your other question, how do you find out if there are more infected areas?

Re: termites

being a retire building contractor, there is only one way to find the rest of the infested areas. start at point A, start tearing out following the trail. when the trails end. thats it. being in Florida, i know termites, intimately.

Re: termites

tashasdaddy said:

being a retire building contractor, there is only one way to find the rest of the infested areas. start at point A, start tearing out following the trail. when the trails end. thats it. being in Florida, i know termites, intimately.

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I have to agree with TD on this, the only real way to find them is see for yourself how far they've gone.

I had problem here with termites years ago, when I built the garage about 20 years ago I used all pressure treated wood and had the termite guys come out and pump the ground full of poison. It got rid of the termites for the time being, but soon after I had big black carpenter ants eating the roof beams and rafters which were the only non pressure treated wood in the building. After a year of fighting to get rid of the ants, and 12 rafters and one support beam later, they were gone, but about ten years ago I started to notice little sawdust piles again and found some soft wood down low, sure enough it was termites, they had eaten away nearly the whole one wall and all the studs as well as most of the floor before I ever saw a single sign. They ate the pressure treated wood and all. I again had the termite guy come out, and another $600 to kill them off and two years later now their back, this time eating the other side of the building. They've never touched the boats or the house yet, but they sure seem to have a taste for the garage. They've even eaten through 3/4" plywood that's been well oil soaked from years of motor work and greasy engines. To make matters worse, I also have a problem with skunks undermining the foundation as well, nothing has deterred them either, short of a shotgun, but the results of that would last months. A few of them though have actually become pretty tame or just bold lately, they'll walk right in and right between your legs and never bother you when your working out there, I've had one walk right up to me an stop, look and continue, then do the same on it's way back out, it sure keeps strangers away. Even the cat don't bother them anymore. Years ago I dug down deep around the whole building and buried wire mesh, but they chewed right through it and peeled open an access hole. The one morning there was at least 4 huge wheel barrels full of dirt at the entrance to the hole. It wouldn't be so bad but they keep digging right under the main door step, if they were out back where no one walked, I'd maybe let them be. You can here when there in there, they make quite a racket and I've even heard a few fights with other animals going on. The skunks usually win. The problem is living with the aftermath of the fight till the odor subsides.

Re: termites

they will eat sheetrock to get around treated wood. had a bubble in some wallpaper, the termites had detoured around a pressure treated support.