Termites are medium sized soft bodied, social insects living in large colonies. They travel through a network of galleries made up of mud to avoid light. Termites damage valuable human belongings like wood, building material, transmission poles, trees, stored grains, paper, books etc.
Termites make the wooden structures hollow and weak as they feed on the wood fiber and cellulose. Termites rarely come out on the surface; hence the termite damage remains unnoticed until it is too late.
Termites enter buildings unobserved from the ground. They perforate the foundation through joints, floor and wall cavities and even penetrate tiny cracks in concrete. Termites build covered runways which are made up of soil. These runways serve as communication lines/paddage tunnel between nest and food.
The movement of termites shows a particular pattern. The termites do not reside in the building or wooden structure. They return to their nest in the ground after procuring the food. The principle of termite control is based on the simple method of stopping this movement. Therefore placing a chemical barrier between the food and the nest is the most effective method of termite control as per specification.
Pre-Construction Anti-Termite Follows Three Stage Of Treatment- At time of foundation footing & trenches will be treated for bottom and side walls to a height of about 3 feets.
- Before laying the floor the top surface of the consolidated earth within the plinth wall holes are made within 30cms width and 15 cms depth and emulsion in water i. e 1: 19 should be applied.
- After the building is completed the earth along the external perimeters of building at 7.5per square meter if verticle surface.(approximate depth of 15 cms and 30 cms apart).
Post-Construction TreatmentAfter careful examination of building structure, holes should be drilled in the floor slab as possible entry points such as junctions of floor and walls, door frames, sewage lines entrance should be spotted by drilling and chemical should be injected until it floods and holes should be closed with matching materials.
Some Interesting Facts:
- There are more than 2800 species of mosquitoes in the world and the list is increasing every year.
- It is estimated that if ten mosquitoes bite a person per night the population of Bangalore would be losing approximately 225 liters of blood per night.
- There are about 3800 named species of living cockroaches in this world. Cockroaches can survive nuclear radiation also.
- 15% of food grains produced in India every year has been consumption by Rats. It has been estimated that 32 baby rats are born against on human being every second. Theoretically a pair of rats will produce nearly 485 offspring in year’s time. It is estimated that there are 5 rats for each person in India.
- House flies are known to harbour over 100 different kinds of disease causing pathogens. A single housefly in its life time lays approximately 900 eggs from one kg of manure 11,000 flies can emerge.