Termites can cause tremendous damage to your property, but they are difficult to spot.
Learn to identify termite holes and prevent them in the future.
Keep reading!
How to identify a termite hole in a ceiling
It might be tempting to see a termite hole on your ceiling and ignore it. We will highly recommend that you take immediate action as regards this. Ignoring their holes or any signs given by them can put your life and that of your family in danger.
One way to identify a termite hole in your ceiling is by noticing any termites dropping from the ceiling. If noticed, your home is prone to severe damage because the ceiling can drop and collapse at any time.
The same way you will identify a termite in your ceiling is the same way you will identify a termite in other locations like window sills, dry woods, homes, and other types of roofs. They are quite different from the way you would identify termites in the ground. We will discuss this soon, just keep reading.
What termite droppings look like
The droppings of termites are tiny oval in shape. It is like a hexagon pebble that has curved edges. An easy way to identify them is to compare them to black pepper grains with the color of wood they infest being similar to the color of frass.
Once these termites find their way into your home, they infest your home in swarms, especially the dry wood termites. This is another reason why their effects are deadlier.
Drywood termites are also known as alate and they are the reproductive type of termites. When they invade your location, they usually lose their wings after mating.
After mating, they make their way inside wooden structures by drilling their way inside. These notorious insects can fly, so drilling their way into the higher places of your home like the roofs and ceiling isn’t a big deal to them. Consider all your wooden structures tampered with once you get a hint that they are lurking around.
After finding their way into the wooden structures in your home, they enter it and seal up all the holes that were used to get inside, such that you would have a hard time trying to look for their point of entry. Once the holes are sealed up by them, they remain inside and eat the wood dangerously from the inside.
They continually chew on it inside while they breed and lay eggs at the same time. Once it is time for them to pass out the faces which are then digested wood, they create other holes from the inside of the wood and eject these digested products from the holes.
This is why you can use their droppings, which are the same as their ejected faces, to identify their presence in your home. That is not all about their lifestyle still.
The wood they move into doesn’t usually serve them for a long time, because the wood is limited in space while they keep laying eggs and multiplying in population.
After a while, the limited space in the wood can not accommodate them again, so they leave their present location to look for a new space to infest. Even after spotting a termite dropping on anywhere close to your home, you will face a hard time trying to detect its location inside a wood.
Also, unless you detect termites dropping around your home, do not be too quick to predict that there are termites around you. Their dropping is indeed a great hint.
- READ MORE: Termite Droppings From Ceiling.
How to identify a termite hole on the ground
Termites on the ground are made up of Formosan termites and Subterranean termites. They specialize in invading hones that are underneath the ground and are referred to as ground termites. Unlike wooden termites found in ceilings and all other areas of the home, they do not leave ejected faces or frass in any location where they are inhabiting.
This is just a simple indication that for subterranean termites, searching for their droppings would not be a good idea in detecting whether they are in your location. This does not imply that they do not have droppings by the way, only that they use their droppings to build mud tubes.
These mud tubes are what they use to transport themselves from one place to another. They also use the mud tubes they create on the wall to ingest pieces of furniture, walls, floors, books, joists, carpets, and beams.
Formosan termites are otherwise known as super termites. Once they attack a home, they can build their mud tubes from the ground to the ceiling of the home.
These termites do not leave their droppings behind and they have the most destructive power. They spread very fast and possess a high breeding rate as well. So how do you identify them then?
Instead of termite droppings, ground termites are identified with the mud tubes they build. Droppings are only specific to dry wood termites only. These tubes are usually hanging from the ceiling and are very noticeable. Another type of termite that uses its mud tube house for recognition is the damp wood termite.
How to detect termite holes in woods
We have already discussed at length how to identify termite holes in wood, but that was specifically for dry wood. The case of wet wood or damp wood is usually different.
The way you identify a termite hole in ground termites is the same way you determine the presence of a termite hole in a plank of wet wood. This means that damp wood termites also built mus tubes. The only difference this time around is that wet wood is rarely found in the home.
What damp wood termites commonly infest is wet wood that is already rotten and is just going through the process of rotting.
Therefore, they are commonly found in the backyard of your home, or garden that has plenty of rotting damp wood. They will always feed, live, and continually remain inside these rotten wet woods.
Signs of termite damage you shouldn’t overlook
- Presence of cracks on the ceiling’s lumber.
They can be caused by dry wood termites and subterranean termites. It makes the wood weak thereby leading to a potential cause of cracks in the wood
- Attack on the ceiling’s drywall
Drywall found on the ceiling contains paperboard. These paperboards contain cellulose which termites can eat. The signs you will see on the drywall is is the presence of mud tubes.
If they are infested by dry wood termites, you will notice some tiny pinholes present on the drywall. Drywalls are weak, so they experience crack which will end up affecting the ceiling later on
- Presence of Dead winged termites and broken wings on the ground
It is easy to mistake this for ants because ants do this as well but here is how to spot the difference. Observe their wings and abdomen closely.
If the wings cover the entire abdomen because of their length, it is a winged termite then. Flying ants and flying termites both possess four wings. For termites, all wings are of the same length.
- Sounds from the ceiling
If you are waiting to hear a sound as loud as a trumpet or tambourine, then you will be disappointed. Your ears have to be double effective because they make faint sounds which are usually more audible at night when everywhere is quiet. It is a head-banging sound that they make while trying to chew the wood.
Conclusion
Detecting an infestation by termites can be challenging because they remain inside the wood to cause whatever harm they would cause. This doesn’t imply that they cannot be detected anyways.
We have carefully provided the necessary information as to how to identify termites holes easily above. Following our provided instructions would go a long way in making the task easier for you.
Let us reemphasize one last time that seeing the signs of a termite in your home and ignoring can cause a very devastating effect. So once their presence is spotted, do not waste any time in detecting their exact location and wiping them out.
Our provided tips above will be of great help to you. Do not forget to drop a comment about how much you found these tips helpful. . Have a good termite wiping session! CIAO