November 2007 / Vol.4 / Issue 11

Hello and Welcome to the November Greenpest News. Each month we aim to provide you with some useful information, keeping it short, sweet and pertinent.

Contents

1. Pest Talk
2. Termiproof Warranty - The Qualification Process for our Distributors.
3. Customer Question of the Month.
4. Monthly Special

Pest Talk

New additions to our DIY Termite Inspection Manual for Home Owners.

It's taken a while but it's finally done. We have added three extra pages crammed with information into chapter 4 of our popular Termite Inspection Manual. (Also available as an eBook.)

A special thanks to John Fleming for his assistance and input.

For those who don't have the manual, chapter 4 is about how to use a moisture meter correctly. This tool is one of the most valuable tools in a termite inspector's kit. When used correctly, it can reveal elevated levels of moisture in timber or behind walls which is often an indication that there are active termites present.

And like many good tools, it is only as good as the person using it. If you are interested in knowing more about moisture meters or if you would like to have a better understanding of just what it is being used for the next time you have your house checked by a professional.

Please note that this chapter will only be available free online until the end of the year.

Why are termite treatments so expensive?

Are pest controllers too greedy or is there more to it?

One of the reasons that termite treatments are expensive is because it requires an expert to carry out the work.  A termite professional has undergone specific training both in the classroom and in the field.  It usually takes from 2 – 5 years full-time experience in the field before a regular pest control technician becomes truly experienced and fully qualified to inspect properties for termites. This experience and knowledge is what he draws on when he prepares a plan to implement a quality termite management program.

We advise that it is sensible for you to always try to deal with an experienced termite manager when it comes to the safety of your home.  Once an ITM (Integrated Termite Management) program has been outlined for your property the experienced manager will often supervise the implementation of the work by a trainee termite manager.  This is how we all learn new skills and how knowledge is passed on.

In many Australian states, a licenced pest control operator must demonstrate a specific number of hours of supervised termite work before they can be issued a licence to treat termites.  Yes, a termite licence is an add-on to a regular pest control licence.  It’s a specialist field and usually requires considerably more study at TAFE as well as on the job training.

Of course there are ways to beat the system and regrettably quite a few pest controllers have had the prerequisite number of supervised hours signed off by their employer ahead of time. It’s easy to see why this occurs.  Here are just a few reasons:

• Supervising a trainee is expensive and unprofitable.
• Bringing a trainee up to speed takes time – about two years.  He needs to experience a broad range of termite situations before he can work independently.
• If an employer does take the trouble to invest time and money into training a new termite manager, he runs the risk of having him leave to the highest bidder once he is fully qualified, or start his own company, just at the point where the employer was beginning to get a return on his investment.
• Consequently it is often cheaper to poach an experienced termite expert from another company than go through the slow process of training a new person.
• This in-feeding has led to a critical shortage of quality, experienced licenced termite technicians.
• And here is the sting in the tail.  Excellent termite technicians don’t come cheap, which is one of the major reasons why termite treatments are so expensive.

You might face a similar kind of problem in your industry, especially if you specialise in a particular field.

Unfortunately, the high salaries offered to attract professionals, also attracts cowboys to the industry. Our definition of a cowboy is one who lacks experience or knowledge or one who acts unethically. They tend to cut corners or offer wrong or inadequate advice, but to the unwary, they appear professional.  The cowboys are the ones who give an industry a bad name.

What this means for you is that you should be checking to see if the technician who prepares your termite management plan has the proper experience and qualifications, so don’t be afraid to ask questions, no matter how silly they may sound.  The way your technician answers those questions may reveal a depth of knowledge or lack of knowledge and experience.  If you are not sure if you are hearing the truth or not, then you’ll simply have to rely on your intuition.

Termiproof Warranty - The Qualification Process for our Distributors.

We have purposely made it somewhat difficult for pest control companies to become authorised Termiproof warranty issuers.  This is to protect both you and us.  We simply don’t want any cowboys handing out warranties willy-nilly.  There is too much at stake.  What we have done to reduce the ‘cowboy factor’ is to insist that every termite manager who wants to issue a Termiproof warranty must pass a written test. 

We have put this test on our web site HERE for all to see.

If you take a look, you will see for yourself that it is an in-depth examination of knowledge and practical experience.  I doubt anyone without considerable experience could pass. What this means for you is that if you do ask for a Termiproof warranty and your termite manager is able to issue one, you can be sure he has passed our stringent examination, and that can only be good for you!

A word of caution however; many of our distributors ARE experts in the termite field, but have yet to qualify as Termiproof warranty issuers.  In most cases this is because termite work is seasonal and right now we are in the midst of a very busy season.  It’s all hands on deck and you can be sure every quality termite manager is flat out servicing his clients, so taking time to complete a challenging examination after-hours when you are tired isn’t going to be a priority. That’s human nature, especially when you are already up to your ears in paperwork.

If you would like a Termiproof warranty, then just ask your local termite manager to issue you one, and if he doesn’t already know about it, simply point him to our web site or have him call us on 1800 056 055 and we’ll take it from there.  It’s brand new, so don’t be surprised if not all pesties have heard of it yet.  It has been advertised in the latest Pest Manager magazine, but that only reaches AEPMA members.

Five years ago few pesties had heard of the Green Termite Bait System either, and now every pest control company knows of it and the better ones supply and service it.

New subscribers to our newsletter may wish to check out our previous letters from the past few months and learn more about our brand new termite warranty in Australia called ‘Termiproof”.  It’s not the easiest termite warranty to get, but if you do decide get it, you can be pretty sure that your home is better than 99% termite-proof. In the unlikely event that you do end up with termite damage, it will be fully repaired under the terms or the warranty.

On a quick note, the Green Termite Bait System is the backbone of the Termiproof warranty and is responsible for 99% of the protection in the Termiproof warranty plan for a standard home.  The reason the warranty has so much depth and detail to it is because we have to cover the many remaining homes that are not standard.

So what constitutes a non-standard home?

• A home that already has a termite infestation.
• A home that is poorly constructed.  For example:
  • Shonky builder.
  • Shonky add-ons.
  • High-set homes that have been closed in underneath without due thought to termite prevention.
  • One that is built on a waffle-pod slab.
• A home that has a history of termite troubles and is yet to find a solution.
• A home with a zero-boundary and no reasonable access the outside boundary wall area.

There are also a limited number of homes that will probably never qualify for a Termiproof warranty because of other features that may be too expensive to rectify:

• A home that has permanent drainage problems.
• A home where it is impractical or impossible to install a Green Termite Bait System because:.
  • Foundations are on solid rock with very shallow or no top soil.
  • Excessive use of thick concrete throughout the whole yard.
• Homes where the client won’t or can’t comply with the requirements outlined to qualify for a Termiproof warranty.
• Homes where it is price prohibitive to make it termite-proof.
• A home that has inaccessible foundations that prohibit access to termite entry points.
• A home that has construction features that leave other permanent and unresolvable termite risk factors.

The reason that we are not too specific with some of the statements above is simply because there are so many variations that may occur. Many are issues are resolvable but others aren't.

As we've mentioned many times before, even if your home is high risk or has a host of termite related problems, taking as many practical and affordable steps as possible to protect your home is sensible. Never give up and simply do nothing or throw the house back on the market and make it someone else's problem... because ignoring the problem or running away is usually more expensive than taking positive action.

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Customer Question of the Month.

Question:

Jerry

Thank you for the reminder to check my baits. I have placed the baits along three accessible sides of the building and I have been checking them. Unfortunately, the termites are active within the building (as they have been for around 5 years now) and there is still a fair amount of radiata pine left, so I’m not sure whether they will be attracted to the baits.

 Our situation is that we have paid two professional exterminators to solve our problem. The first dusted with arsenic. He was cheap and didn’t hang around long to check the results.

 The second was more expensive and he used either Intrigue or Premise. He was very determined, to the extent that at one stage he found a void below the roots of a plumb tree. He poured 90 litres of the stuff into the ground.

 He arranged for a guy from Melbourne, who did thermal imaging to inspect (at our cost). The photographs indicated that they were still present but only in one small location. I think at that stage we all hoped that the perimeter protection that he had installed was doing the job. He gave up at this stage.

 In the roof space of the building, which was a garage, now converted to a bedroom, workroom and bathroom, is a storage area containing a lot of cardboard boxes of childhood memorabilia. My son was looking for something up there around 6 months ago, and gave me the good news that the termites are back.

 There is so much damage done, that it is not worth pouring more money into eradicating the termites. I just want to hold them at bay until my son moves out and we can strip it and rebuild using metal stud wall construction.

 As I said, the radiata pine is almost all gone, but they have done only limited damage to the Oregon structural members.

 The aim of the exercise is to minimize further damage until we have the money to rebuild.

 Regards, Peter B. ASHFIELD, NSW

Answer:

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your letter. I certainly can imagine your frustration with the ongoing termite problem. It can be disheartening when even your pestie gives up! However I would suggest that every problem has a solution, although sometimes the solution may be as bad as the problem. e.g. - Your plans to reframe your home with metal studs... Ouch!

I believe it is in your interest to shop around until you find a pestie with a solution - and that isn't always easy - often the really top blokes are booked a long way ahead - and unless you have a strong recommendation from someone, it is hard to know beforehand if they are all talk, or if they actually know how to implement a successful treatment.

Many pesties fail to stay abreast of the latest techniques and so are unable to offer solutions because the problem falls outside of their current knowledge base. Imagine going to a doctor who hasn't learnt anything thing new since they graduated 20 years ago!

The baits around the perimeter of your home are only going to help if they are installed completely around your perimeter at 2-3m intervals and even then they will mainly help to intercept new foraging termites before they arrive in your home. I only mention this because I see you only have 6 baits at this point in time and on average most homes need between 20 and 30.

If you already have an established termite nest inside your home (or directly under your home), then it is like the Trojan horse already inside the walls. Baits around the perimeter are only going to have very limited contact with the existing termites. The preferred solution is to find the nest and destroy it. Easier said than done sometimes.

Re: Thermal Imaging. I don't put a lot of faith in thermal imagining because they have a very limited range of effectiveness. Sometimes they are great, but very often the conditions are not right for the thermal camera to detect termite heat in a wall.

When you do find active termites in your home it's vital that you don't disturb them. Get an expert out who knows how to effectively apply a termiticide (such as Termidor Dust) to these termites. In turn they will transfer the dust amongst themselves until the whole colony is destroyed.

Installing Ec2c Termite Windows in high risk areas throughout your home may also help you to locate any other active termites not yet discovered as well as to reveal areas where they have been previously. They may even return to these areas and then you will have the chance to treat them as mentioned above.

Good luck, and I hope this has been helpful to you.

Jerry

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The Greenpest News is Published by J & A Furnell Nominees P/L; Shop 23a Franklin Square, 60 Railway Street, Mudgeeraba, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of Jerry Furnell. The reader is encouraged to seek further information from appropriate government and statutory departments before taking any action based on this material alone.

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See you again next month.

Always... At your service,

Jerry Furnell
Green Pest Control & Green Termite Bait Systems.
Phone 1800 6 12345.

Copyright 2007 Green Termite Bait Systems & Green Pest Control. All rights reserved.

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