Termite Control Melbourne and Victoria
Termite Control measures are essential for all homeowners to protect their home from termites – a termite attack can be a very emotional and expensive experience!
Termites VIC (formerly Fumapest) provide a full range of termite services across Melbourne and Eastern Victoria (Gippsland):
Important termite facts for homeowners?
- Termite damage is not covered by standard home insurance policies
- Yet, the chances of your home coming under termite attack is higher than suffering a house fire, flood or other natural disaster, combined!
- CSIRO estimate that 1 in 5 homes will suffer a termite attack
- In Australia, it’s estimated that 80% of homes are within 25m of a termite nest
- Bottom line: A termite management plan is essential to protect your property from termite attack
In Melbourne, there is the strange procedure whereby councils can designate certain areas as “termite declared”, which means that anyone building a home needs to install termite protection. The fact that one suburb and be termite declared and a neighbouring suburb is not, is clearly nonsense. Termites can’t read or know what suburb they are in – termites are all across Melbourne and Victoria. The level of threat may vary across Victoria, but the threat of termite attack is very real for all homeowners.
How to protect your home from termites?
For existing homes, there are four key elements to a successful termite management plan:
- Make conditions around the property less attractive to termites
- Improve drainage / reduce moisture
- Remove potential food sources
- Make sure there are no concealed termite entry points
- Have a professional termite inspection at least once a year
- Install a termite management system to provide long lasting termite protection for your home
- Termite chemical soil treatments
- Termite baiting systems
If you are building a new home or carrying out renovations, termite protection measures need to be installed during construction.
Termites Melbourne and Victoria
What are termites?
Termites and “white ants” are the same thing. Some people use the term “white ants” as they look superficially like pale coloured ants. However, if you look at them carefully, they are quite different to ants – ants have a hard cuticle, are darker in colour, have an obvious waist, have bent antennae and have eyes (worker termites are blind). So, termites aren’t ants at all… in fact they are more closely related to cockroaches!
Termite species in Melbourne / Victoria
Subterranean termites cause the vast majority of damage in Australia and the main pest species of termite in Melbourne and Victoria are Coptotermes acinaciformis and Coptotermes frenchi. Both species can build large nests of up to 1 million individuals, but they have very different foraging behaviours which impacts control options – C. acinaciformis send large number of termites to a few food sources, whereas C. frenchi tend to be more fussy with their food and can easily be disturbed.
Nasutitermes termites can sometimes be a problem, and occasionally Heterotermes and Schedorhinotermes termites.
There are also drywood and dampwood termites in Melbourne & Victoria, but these rarely cause much damage.
Termite FAQ
As most people will know, termites eat wood. However, it is actually the cellulose material in wood they are after, which means they are also happy to eat cardboard and paper. They will chew through other materials to get to their food.
Worried about termites? Call Us Today
If you’ve found termites on your property, or you suspect their presence, it’s vital to contact a professional as soon as possible. Call us today on 1800 113 112 or email us to arrange a termite inspection or discuss our available termite control solutions.