Sunday November 22nd, 2009
 |  |
 |
Must! Destroy! Ants! 2: The Battle Continues
Posted by Philip Higgs on June 26, 2007 - 8:00am.
I admit it, I have become quite paranoid. Quick recap: I’m rebuilding my work studio—in large part because many, many carpenter ants have made it their home—and I need to pour a new foundation before I build. As we’ve discussed, whatever foundation I pour will need to be insulated; the ants, unfortunately, find insulation irresistible. Whatever tack I take with the new studio, I’m convinced the ants will infiltrate and destroy my it. Yes, this is what I think about in the dark of night.
A certain relative of mine happens to be an architect. (No, not the architect who’s designing the studio—a familial injustice about which I will never hear the end.) He thinks the ants will go away: digging a trench for the new foundation will scare them away; getting better drainage around the perimeter will make the soil less habitable; they won’t dig down and all the way under the foundation wall to get to the foam. I don’t buy it. They’re after me and my buildings, and they will never stop.
So I spent most of last Thursday and Friday calling around to different dealers of insulated concrete forms—which we’ll likely use for our foundation wall—getting some pricing info and trying to get some details about bug resistance. What I was trying to find out was whether any of the foam used in the various brands and models of ICFs would be bug-proof. What I got was something that should be familiar to anyone who’s ever shopped for anything even slightly technical: many different answers for the same question.
I talked to a former sales rep for an ICF called PolySteel; he told me carpenter ants will definitely chew through PolySteel—and almost every other ICF available—unless it's treated with a borax compound. (Borax, or boric acid, is a relatively innocuous chemical to humans, but a deadly one to ants. Or so they say.) PolySteel does have a borax-treated version—at least I was told it's borax—but it’s only manufactured in Alabama, where they have a vicious termite problem. Shipping it here, of course, adds to the embodied energy of the stuff, making it less environmentally appealing; it’ll add 20 percent to the cost per form and, probably most important, it’s a pain in the ass to ship from there to here.
I talked to a rep for PerformWall down in Denver who told me that he’s never heard of carpenter ants getting into their stuff, even though they don't have any kid of insecticide. He had spec’d a remodel up in the mountains with a huge termite problem; the termites skipped the PerformWall and went straight for the (allegedly treated) wooden sill plate that sits on top of the foundation wall.
I talked to a guy from ACH Foam, also down in Denver—ACH makes Perform Guard, the treated foam that PolySteel uses in their ICFs. And they also make an ICF called TechBlock, which is available—and, I think, manufactured—right in Denver, which has an anti-ant borate compound mixed into the foam-and-cement blocks directly.
So the short answer is that insulated concrete forms may resist ants on their own, without any chemical help. Or that the chemicals might not work. Or that they do.
It would be useful at this point to have someone to simply tell me what’s going to work—without contradiction.
you can buy a little machine that makes a noise at a frequency that only ants can hear. this noise is really annoying to them so it keeps them out of your living space. im not sure what the range is, so in order to cover everything you may need to get more than one, but its painless to you, doesnt use chemicals, and you can leave it on all the time. i dont know if itll directly get them out of your woodwork, but they'll be discouraged from coming out to get food and maybe starve them to death. i also found this
PreventionHomeowners should trim all trees and bushes so branches do not touch or come in contact with the house. Correct moisture problems such as leaking roofs, leaking chimney flashing, or plumbing, poorly ventilated attics or crawl spaces and blocked gutters. Replace rotted or water-damaged wood and eliminate wood to soil contact. Remove dead stumps within 50 feet of the house, if practical, and repair trees with damage at broken limbs, and holes in the trunk. Seal cracks and crevices in the foundation, especially where utility pipes and wiring occur from outside. Be sure to store firewood off the ground away from the house and bring in only enough firewood (first examining it) to be used quickly . Consider non-organic mulches near the house in heavily infested ant areas. High moisture conditions must be eliminated to help control carpenter ants, prevent future attacks and prevent "wood decay" fungus infection.
thats from http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2063.html
Hi,I found these site's,you can read upon at,
www.livingwithbugs.com
www.naturalhandyman.com Under FAQs
www.terro.com
Terro has liquid ant bait's made from Borax,it is mined in the Calif. desert,used to make soap.
I live in Michigan,and it is a bad year here with all kind's of ant's outside,I hardly ever get ant's inside anymore,if I do I put chopped up onion's around outside of foundation,they hate the smell,that work's for me. Good Luck
Nice looking Studio by the way
that you are not losing your mind or sanity. The ants are out to get you. Plotting, munching, laughing, waiting for you to serve up a new little appetizer of foundation. You could always work some marketing magic and ask a contractor if they would be interested in using your studio as a test project to prove their product claims... or just pray to the Stella god in the hopes of being gifted with profound foundation insight.
~ Greener today than I was yesterday!
...down!
To Chez Higgs!
To munch on his house!
Boom, boom, boom.
See? Not so funny when the little buggers come crawling for you.
Watch out for the fangs...
when you see a mass like that, they are usually 1) Relocating and or 2) establishing a new nest .. in which case they are bringing the new Queen - thus the beefed up security.
hopefully they were just the harmless little sugar ants like i get in my garden (and occasionally my house).. they just started a new nest moving from the one near my borage to the one near my bee balm.
Yep, we have a vicious termite and ant problem here in Bama... along with a few other problems...
=^.,.^=
Cats are like potato chips, you can never have just one!!
Have you considered talking to your little univited guests or even meditating on that and inviting them to leave. Commucation tends to solve many a problem.
As a last resort i begrudgingly suggest laying out some cornmeal near their entrance(s). They will take it in and they cannot digest it and will die.
Last year I went to take a shower and there a cluster of ants. I though they were just ants. Wrong!
I hit them with the shower and sent them down the drain. This went on for a few day and then they were gone. LOL! They left me a mark. I stepped into the tub to a shower...creek...then bang the tub shifted and fell down on the right side of the wall were it was mounted. I could see where something had been eating away the wall. My brother who works for a home improvement store came over and took a look. Yelp! Carpenter ants! I just started my bathroom remodeling early. When taking the skirting off my house to do the re-plumbing, I found their nest in the ground. I tried commercial stuff. I should of offered a wine list with it. I was telling one of my neighbor about my problem. He came down with a 20 gauge shot gun. "What the heck!" He fired off a full box of shells into the ground. He said the concussion will not only kill but they will move away. I bought him two boxes of shell and I had him to repeat the action. So far no signs of the ants. It works on groung wasp also.
Last year I went to take a shower and there a cluster of ants. I though they were just ants. Wrong!
I hit them with the shower and sent them down the drain. This went on for a few day and then they were gone. LOL! They left me a mark. I stepped into the tub to a shower...creek...then bang the tub shifted and fell down on the right side of the wall were it was mounted. I could see where something had been eating away the wall. My brother who works for a home improvement store came over and took a look. Yelp! Carpenter ants! I just started my bathroom remodeling early. When taking the skirting off my house to do the re-plumbing, I found their nest in the ground. I tried commercial stuff. I should of offered a wine list with it. I was telling one of my neighbor about my problem. He came down with a 20 gauge shot gun. "What the heck!" He fired off a full box of shells into the ground. He said the concussion will not only kill but they will move away. I bought him two boxes of shell and I had him to repeat the action. So far no signs of the ants. It works on groung wasp also.