Battle of the Species 3: Termites

One of the main problems we identified at the cabin was potential termite damage. There was a visibly damaged roof beam that we knew had to be repaired, and an early diagnosis indicated that there was a possible termite issue there. Here is a photo of the original ceiling and the roof beams.

First, a note about termites, from http://www.wikipedia.org/:

“Termites, sometimes known as white ants, are a group of social insects. They usually prefer to feed on dead plant materal such as wood, leaf litter, and soil, but about 10 percent of the 4,000 species are economically significant pests that can cause serious structural damage to buildings. Their habit of remaining concealed often results in their presence being undetected until the timbers are severely damaged and exhibit surface changes. Once termites have entered a building they do not limit themselves just to wood, also damaging other cellulosic materials such as wood paper and carpet. ... Termites usually avoid exposure to unfavourable environmental conditions. They tend to remain hidden in tunnels in earth and wood. Where they need to cross an impervious or unfavourable substrate, they cover their tracks with tubing made of faeces, plant matter, and soil. Sometimes these shelter tubes will extend for many metres, such as up the outside of a tree reaching from the soil to dead branches. Most termite barrier systems used for buildings aim to prevent concealed termite access, thus forcing them out into the open where they must form clearly visible shelter tubes to gain entry.”

The wiki entry goes on and includes a very insightful article about avoiding termite troubles…unfortunately, a proactive title like that would prove to be of little use to us.

As Jesse, our general contractor, prepared to do the demolition before installing the replacement beam, he took down some old metal siding from the back of the house, over the clerestory windows. When he did this, the surprise he discovered was that each of the beams in this area, ten in all, had serious infestations. In fact, each beam sheltered an active colony that had bored into the beams to a distance of 10 – 12 feet!

Here are photos of the damage, discovered during the demolition and afterwards.

The first one is the area where the metal siding covered the ends of the beams. In this photo, the ends of 2 or 3 beams should be visible, but termites had devoured them. Keep in mind the scale of the beams - they are 20-plus feet long, 12x6 inches. At least two feet of each beam extended into this space!

The second photo is of one of the beams - relatively intact - after demolition. Mostly, as the old wood was exposed to air, it simply disintegrated, as shown in the final of these three photos. This damage led to our decision to take the entire roof off of the original part of the cabin – the stone part. The construction project is documented in earlier blog entries.

We decided to use the new technology beams rather than the original solid wood ones, first because the original type costs $1,500 a pop, and second because we actually needed more than 10 beams to be safe structurally. The beams we chose were $250 apiece in the length we needed, so this element of the construction project came in significantly below budget and actually improved the house. The photo below shows the construction progress with the new clerestory windows and tech beams.

The end of the story is the installation of the standing seam metal roof, and the new interior paneling and lighting. So far we have not found any damage in the addition – the newer part of the house. But we are keeping an eye out for any signs!