As a home or property owner, one of the major issues that you would want to reconsider and pay close attention to a property is the potential infestation. While it’s very unlikely to encounter such problems with the proper house inspection, if left unattended, can somehow be a massive frustration and issue you’ll never want to deal with. First, dealing with infestations such as termite treatment cost can be pricey. 

There are do it yourself options for termite control, but these methods vary on the level of infestation present in your home. From baits to disinfection, the efficacy varies with what is needed. On average cost, termite treatment cost varies around $300 to $1000 on limited bait stations or chemical treatments and is based on the sq ft of your property. If you are dealing with larger infestations that require bigger solutions such as tenting, the cost for termite treatment can sum up from $1200 to $3000 and even higher based on the size and per linear foot (sq ft) of your property.  

The termite control cost for every termite treatment is affected by the infestation level, treatment type or requirements, and home structure or the dry area present in the vicinity. The average cost of termite treatment for pest control companies vary on the square foot of your property, termite problem level, types of termites present in the entire home, pest control company experience, and more.

How Long Does Tenting For Termites Last?

Before we jump over to the cost of termite treatment through tenting for disinfection and its value, we first need to understand the key features of this method. Disinfection or tenting is the process that uses lethal gas to deal with pests present in a home or an enclosed area. Either dry timber or subterranean termites, a pest control company provides the average cost of to treat for termites by the process or methods used to get rid of termites. These termite treatment costs from pest control companies usually measure by 10 per linear foot/square foot (sq ft) for disinfection.

The average cost to get rid of termites or how much does termite activity present around the foundation of your home, the extent of the infestation in the entire house, and types of levels of termite infestations affect the fumigation cost, termite bait, and types of pests present in your home. It includes dampwood termites, subterranean termite, termite colonies, or potential future termite infestations.

Disinfection comes in two methods based on the severity or level of infestation present in your property. First is by sealing the home, structure, or stuff with tape, plastic, or any materials. The second one is by using vinyl-coated plastic tarpaulin tents around the house, property, or structure.

As the law requires since 1961, pest control services require to attach a sign into the subarea, attic, or garage of the house, providing details on the disinfection process. It must be in comprehensive information from the fumigator’s licensee name, date, and chemicals or fumigant used on the property. This sign must be attached permanently in the area for future purposes. 

Heat treatment or fumigation can cost you $1 or $2 per linear foot of the property. The amount you’ll have to pay for disinfection treatment varies on the structure size, degree of the infestation, and sessions required for treatment. 

Termite treatment using tents is another option that professional pest control services can offer homeowners based on the degree of infestation present on a property. While disinfection is somewhat the most expensive type of pest treatment, it’s also the most effective one. 

It’s best to treat termites on all the timber or wood present in your structure or home. For this process, it will require treatment to the entire family or property to ensure the infestation is controlled. It’s best done with severe termite infestation and when your pest control service cannot determine the root cause of the plague. 

To contain treatment and deliver its highest efficacy, professional pest control service will require: 

• A tent or vinyl-coated tarpaulin will cover the whole structure. Most contractors use tarpaulin in creating tents and protecting the entire property.
• The process requires 1 to 3 days to complete the procedure and ensure all pests like termites and beetles are exterminated.
• When pests like termites are exposed to the gas or fumigant, it will attack their nervous system, which robs them of oxygen, causing their death. 
• After the fumigation is done, you’ll require additional six hours until the air levels become the same for humans and pets or animals to return to the structure, property, or home. However, your contractor will inform you if it’s safe to return or not. 

The disinfection process won’t leave residual traces around your home. However, residents—humans, pets, animals., and sensitive plants require to evacuate the area before disinfection starts. 

Heat treatment is another process of dealing with termites, beetles, and other pests around the house. The concept is almost the same as tenting, but it contains heat inside the property. 

• The temperature present in your home is manipulated and raised to 120 to 140 degrees using blow heaters for approximately 35 minutes.
• The process seems short and straightforward, but to complete the treatment will take about a whole day before it’s done.

Suppose your professional pest control contractor requires this process, you will require to remove critical items that may be damaged by the procedure. It includes musical instruments such as guitars, pianos, sensitive electronics around the home, and artworks that can be prone and exposed to heat. The high temperature can damage these items and best to remove them before treatment for safety and precautions.

Fumigation and heat treatment for termites is highly effective for termites, beetles, and other infestation which deals with current issues related to termites. However, the process won’t prevent the future plague from developing. 

• The Fumigation procedure from preparing to aerating the whole property can last about 24 hours to about 72 hours. It still varies with the current outdoor condition and the size of the property or structure that needs to be treated.

Fumigation has no known detrimental cause on your property or structure and leaves your home free from hazardous contaminants and chemicals; the heating process can potentially cause harm to other sensitive furnitures inside your property like antique furnitures. Additionally, if heat is not directed properly into the right places, chances are, termites will move on to areas of your home that are cooler for safety. 

The fumigation method is lowly regarded by most environmental companies even if it deals with effectively killing pestilence like termites. If there is a pest colony under the ground of your property, heat treatment and fumigation are not effective and won’t destroy the colony. This is where you’ll need another type of treatment that deals with subterranean termites.

Is Tenting For Termites Necessary?

Understanding when tenting treatment is needed allows you to have better options on how to treat potential pestilence inside your property. Tenting is best used when termite infestation is widespread and severe from termites. 

Regardless of the other treatment procedure, fumigation is advisable for severe termite pestilence. While innovation and technology have continued to evolve and offer non-tent treatment options, several home and property owners still go after tenting solutions due to their efficacy. 

Unlike subterranean termites that dwell and build colonies on the ground, termites go after perfectly dry and sound woods. Though there are various alternatives to tenting as the cost is higher compared to other treatments, it’s still a good option for efficacy. 

Tenting treatment and its cost vary on the level of pestilence severity and the size of the structure. Some also consider the tenting as cumbersome, and the price is higher and inconvenient, several homeowners still go after something that offers total termite extermination. 

With all the setbacks laid in front of tenting treatment for contractors like expensive cost, training, liability, and licensing, it’s still an option for dealing and eradicating termites. 

Here’s how to determine whether you need to tent termite in your property: 

Potential termite infestation on inaccessible areas.

One of the main purposes of the tenting treatment for termites, especially for a termite is that it allows complete access even to non-accessible areas where alternative options cannot reach. If you cannot fully get the infected areas, then all efforts are wasted. 

It is where tenting becomes the best alternative and only option to exterminate termites from inaccessible areas of your home. Though all processes are highly effective, it’s ideal to understand the nature of these pests to fully control and destroy them from munching your property and causing more harm than what cost you to deal with them in the first place. 

Widespread pestilence

One of the most excellent ways to determine the severity of termite infestation and how to protect your property from termite is to ask for a home inspection. That way, you’ll easily choose the severity and level of infestations present on your property. 

Most home inspection professionals provide complete details of the degree of termite infestation and other issues with a home. Its multiple termite infestation is found in various areas across your structure, it’s ideal to deal with them using a tenting method. 

While it takes roughly five years for the termite colony to mature and spread across the structure, ideal to exterminate them the moment you’ve discovered these pests for total peace of mind and termite protection. 

Visible termites are swarming in your home attic.

The rule of thumb implies that when you discover termites swarming in your attic, then tent treatment is your ideal option. Why, because of a lot of factors that you need to reconsider from electric, plumbing, insulation, wood or floor joists, and other inaccessible places that other termite treatment won’t be possible to incorporate in the area. 

The attic also homes to multiple layers of wood that are perfectly insulated and are ideal for a termite to stay due to treatment options. With the challenges with termite treatment, the most excellent way to exterminate them is by tenting, fogging, or heat procedure.

Drywood termites are swarming on your property for multiple and frequent years.

When you see termites swarming over the structure, you must never ignore this sign as it means there is already an established or matured colony living on the same roof as you are. While the territory takes about three to five years to reach its potential maturity, swarming termites means they are on the hunt for a new area to live and munch. 

If you notice termites swarming on your property yearly, then it’s ideal to contact the most excellent pest control to deal with the widespread termite infestations. Visible termite swarming on your property requires tent treatment to deal with the pestilence completely.

Drywood termites are on the structure’s wood floor.

Tent fogging is the most excellent option if you find termite swarming on your wood floor. We all know that wood floors consist of multiple insulated layers of wood, where drywood termites will most likely stay as their colony matures. Liquid treatment or foam treatment won’t be a good option as it only deals with the first layer of wood and not the succeeding layers. It won’t reach the house for termites to achieve the chemical treatment around your home to prevent further damage intended to eradicate the plague.

Unless you’ve noticed and stop termite pestilence in its first stage, tent treatment and pest management is the most excellent option to stop termites from munching your wood floor and all inaccessible wood structure on your property. 

What Needs To Be Removed When Tenting For Termites

When preparing for tent fogging and aeration of lethal gas to exterminate termites, homeowners understand the cumbersome procedure and potential risks if not properly attended to. Preparation ahead of the scheduled fumigation process means you will need to evacuate the property and remove several items inside your home. 

These include perishable goods, animals, electronic appliances, clothing, and other sensitive things that can be damaged during the process. Since termite tenting is considered one of the most effective methods of exterminating termites, the setbacks are surely worth it. 

While a contracted professional pest control service deals with termite extermination, you have to prepare for the procedure.

The process takes up to 72 hours or more to be completely done, and until your fumigator tells you it’s completely safe to return to the property, you will need to pack essential staff for about three days of being out of the house. 

1. The current weather conditions during fogging processes can affect the success of the termite treatments.
2. With bad weather, the process should be canceled as it will affect its efficacy
3. Actual dry-wood termite treatments take more or less 24 hours. 
4. The aeration method can take about six hours.
5. As the homeowner, you will need to wait for the fumigant specialists to completely clear the house and inform you about the safety condition of your property. 

Before the fumigation starts, here’s a quick list of what to prepare and removed in your home or property. 

• Food for pets, animals, and people should be removed inside the house if they are not on the original airtight seal or containers. 
• Medicines and tobacco products can stay inside the house as long as you keep them in aplastic jars, cans, or metal bottles that are sealed and the original manufacturer’s seal is intact.
• Unopened canned items and bottles of the original packaging that are sealed can stay in the house, but if you have opened them, they should be out of the house. These include soups, medicines, and drinks.
• Mattresses that are sealed and secured plastics like baby mattresses must be removed. Waterproof covers should be opened or removed. The plastic affects the fumigation and aeration process.
• Dry goods packed in cardboard boxes and bags should be removed or must be secured in a double bag even if you haven’t opened them like rice, chips, cereals, etc.
• Remove plants inside your home or outdoors that might be part of the tent coverings during treatment to prevent damage.
• Call the gas company to turn off the gas line in your home or property.
• Shrubbery around your property must be trimmed to enable the treatment between shrubbery and your property. 
• In preparation before the treatment, water your premise at about six inches deep to avoid fumigant leakage from the tent base.

You can check with your fumigant contractor for additional instructions and a checklist of what needs to be done before the process. Aside from the mentioned things to be removed, you will need to prepare important stuff for your family like accommodation plans for about three days. You will also need to store and pack clothes for protection. 

You will need to unplug electrical appliances like machine machines, heaters, ovens, refrigerators, and television. You will need to leave home keys for the exterminator to lock and secure your property after the fogging treatment. 

Once the process is done, you will need to wash clothes, utensils after the procedure, even the sealed ones. It’s ideal to wipe and clean windows, shelves, doors, floors, countertops, and surfaces to ensure everything is free of chemical residue.

Who Pays For Termite Tenting

As a homeowner or if you are planning to purchase a property and want to check the current condition of the house, a property inspection is vital. The cost varies per state rules and regulations. However, generally, the seller or homeowner pays for the inspection cost. At some point, a termite inspection is free for most companies in the hope that they’ll get the work done.

Whether you are planning to sell your property or do an annual treatment of your property, you are solely responsible for the treatment cost as the seller or property owner. The cost includes tenting, remediation, and spraying of active termite plague. The cost also includes repair of rotten drywood or timber present in the structure chewed by pests. 

On the contrary, a buyer can pay for the cost of termite prevention or any preventive recommendations for the property buyer.

Home insurance doesn’t cover repair or termite removal on the property. Insurance companies don’t cover termite pestilence, but most pest control services and companies offer various plans like free inspection annual treatment, and inspection to ensure your property is free of damaging pests. 

Before sealing the final deal on a property, you want to acquire it, have it check for termites, and renegotiate the price if found active or previous cases to make sure you still have the most excellent deal on the home purchase before it goes through. 

Conclusion

While there are no permanent treatments that prevent termites from reentering your home or property, it’s suggested to deal with these pesky creatures from the first sign of pestilence. It requires continuous effort to make sure that termites have been fully exterminated.