|
|
Why Termites Win
1 Feb, 2008 By: Austin Frishman Pest Management ProfessionalNobody likes retreats — neither our customers, nor our technicians, sales staff, branch managers or company owners. Yet the standard procedure seems to be to rush out and try to satisfy difficult termite accounts by doing spot retreats and hoping for the best.
Before the swarm season strikes (to whatever extent it still does), analyze all of your previous retreatments to determine whether any trends appear. This way, you can change your practices to significantly reduce failure.
Here are 35 questions to ask when studying your past termite retreats:
1. What crew did the work?
2. What time of the year was the work completed?
3. Where did the termites appear in the structure?
4. Which termitcides were used, where?
5. Was foam used? If so, where?
6. Where were moisture problems noted?
7. Was a moisture meter used prior to treatment?
8. Were there extreme weather conditions such as a hurricane, flooding or heavy snow up to a month before or 10 months after the treatment?
9. What rig and equipment were used?
10. What were the pressure and volume used?
11. How was customer cooperation? Were you allowed to drill into floors? Was the garage empty?
12. Who was the salesperson involved? (Sometimes sales staff promise too much for too little.)
13. Who built the structure? (Termites might enter one builder's homes in the same location more than 90 percent of the time.)
14. What's the water table?
15. What's the land-use history? (Old corn fields and orange groves, for example, can be heavy termite breeding grounds.)
16. What's the age of the structure?
17. Where's the hot-water heater and how have you treated around it?
18. What's the elevation of the property and the pitch away from the structure?
19. What's the soil type? (Clay soils are more difficult to treat. Some houses are built on huge rocks. Liquid soil termiticides often won't bind there.)
20. If mulch is present, how much and where?
21. What's the construction type? (slab, stone walls, crawlspace, etc.)
22. What type of heating does the structure have (radiant heat or other)?
23. Are there special construction considerations (i.e. spas, Jacuzzis, French drains and sump pumps)?
24. Is there a history of moisture problems in walls, the roof, etc.?
25. What's the type and amount of trees on the site and what's their closeness to the structure? (Large rooted trees can serve as highways for termites.)
26. Are there areas such as bathroom traps that routinely are retreated?
27. Is there trenching and rodding, or just rodding?
28. What's the depth of the rods used relative to the distance to the foundation?
29. Are there rain gutters and leaders, and if so, what's their condition?
30. What's the distance between drill holes?
31. What's the distance between termite bait stations (where applicable)?
32. Where are the bait stations located?
33. What type of bait's used and how?
34. What related training has the termite crew received?
35. What's the year, month, day, and time the initial treatment was started? When was it completed?
Hopefully, when you're finished answering these 35 questions, you'll have a better outline of "things to do" to improve your team's termite management practices and can reduce related callbacks and retreats.
You can reach Frishman, an industry consultant since 1967 and president of AMF Pest Management Services Inc., in Boca Raton, Fla., at mypmp@questex.com.
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.