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agreed.
sorry to hijack this thread, but what do the others stand for: icf, sip and cmu? one of them must be your product,castleblock, no?
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w. james
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ICF stand for Insulated Concrete Forming. SIP stands for Structural Insulated Panels. CMU stands for Concrete Masonry Unit (Hollow Tile).
My company carries one ICF product and two SIP products. CMU is generally sold in Hilo by Glover. Steel Framing is produced on Oahu by Deitrich.
There are other CIF suppiers in state but I don;t keep track of them.
I'm not sure this is a hijack. The topic was about dealing with termites. Easiest way is to stop building with wood. You generally get a much better building too.
To address an earlier question: The product is called Termimesh I believe. It is a stainless steel mesh that is applied around pipe penetrations in a concrete slab to prevent termite intrusion. That helps for ground termites. Other termites fly.
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good info. thanks.
"chaos reigns within.
reflect, repent and reboot.
order shall return."
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"a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
w. james
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Thank you,Rob and Kani.
I am going to research Termimesh.
Eightfingers,I heard that borax treatment is effective only if it's a pressure treatment,which is very time- consuming and rarely done.
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The borate treatment is used regularly here. It must be thought of as a borate system however. As pressure treatment it does not completely penetrate the wood. For that reason every time a piece of wood is cut the freshly cut end needs to be dipped or painted with borate. I have seen owner/builders do this. I have never seen a "professional" carpenter do this. A system like borate is like a chain - it's only as strong as its weakest link.
In addition, the enytemology department of U.H. does a lot (and I mean a lot!) of termite testing. Seems we have some great termite country here. They reported that the borate, tested in their termite mounds, had a useful lifespan of approx. 3 years. Years back, before the EPA banned a number of effective termite poisons, there were some sharp tools available. Borate is rather weak tea.
By example... we carry a plywood substitute called Viroc. U.H. did the termite testing on it and the statement we got back included: "Termites would rather die than eat Viroc." I don't mention this to sell you Viroc or products like it except to illustrate that there are alternative materials on the market which do the job without poisons.
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Thanks,Rob.
I am totally against all kinds of allegedly safe poisons.Especially with edible plants around.
And there is nothing wrong about you talking about the non-wood materials you deal as a distributor.Because if I had learned about them earlier...But to start all over-plans,permits and all other stuff..
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I understand. I have the most faith in owner/builders to do the best job. "Professionals" generally have the poorest record of workmanship. I say generally because there are skilled and careful wood builders - just not very many.
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It is never to late to change ;~) There are two ways of looking at this. Eliminate all wood or look at termites as one of the things in your house that needs maintenance.
In our remodel we are trying to absolutly limit the amount of wood we use (even in the trim...), but still have some. It is not easy to absolutly eliminate wood, as it is a main construction material... (have yet to see a house that has absolutely no wood anywhere)
We are also trying to look at each material we use, and trying not to use products that will mold or mildew. All wood we use we borate treat after all cuts (even have a syringe to treat predrills! Oh, another thing to worry about... nails & screws tend to rust out here... SS is used alot, at an additional cost... be aware that even galvanizing has issues here...) We allow all boards to dry then treat with a mold/mildew preserver.... I doubt that anyone would hire someone to do this (the manpower cost alone!) but it is what we have decided is important.
Even with all of this attention to detail, we realize that there will be some termite potential in our house. We have it inspected annually & treated as needed...
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Carey,you are lucky to be able to "supervise" your own construction.
As an owner -builder I am useless.That's why I have a very good GC ,but I have a feeling,he prefers to work with wood,like most of the GC,I heard...
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Still hope, after watching your progress through the maze of preparation for home building since I first talked to you in Feb, I am going to say what SB's says sometimes - "eventually you have to trip to shute"... and hold on.
