The Best Chemical Option to Protect your Home from Termites

Owning your own home is the great Australian dream. And while it seems to be getting harder and harder to achieve that goal, once you actually get there, the satisfaction can be overwhelming. It is certainly an emotional investment and why wouldn’t it be, you save, save, save and do some more saving until finally you can afford to purchase ‘the one’! 

But that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction can come crashing down around you and quickly turn to panic and desperation; especially if unwanted visitors are found in your home. Unwanted visitors by the name of termites!

There’s no denying it, termites can cause a lot of damage in a small amount of time. Did you know that termites actually cause more damage to Australian homes each year than fire and flood combined? Research shows that 1 in 5 homes (new and old) are affected by termites each year, with the annual repair costs estimated at over $1.3 billion per year.

Unfortunately, unlike fire or flood damage and even damage caused by uninvited guests of the human variety, your building and contents insurance won’t cover you for damage caused by termites, leaving you devastated and very much out of pocket. 

This is why it is so important that you take every possible precaution to protect what is, for most of us, our most valued asset – our home.

Once termites enter your building, they can cause severe structural damage which can be very expensive to repair. In some extreme cases, property owners have had to literally ‘walk away’ from their properties as the homes are so severely damaged, that the structural integrity of the timber is no longer there. 

Not convinced? Click here to read a recent article about a family who lost their home on the Sunshine Coast. 

As we always say, prevention is better than a cure, which is why it’s so important to ensure your home is adequately protected from these nasty critters.

If left long enough, termites will eat you out of house and home

Termites are constantly foraging for food, 24 hours a day, seven days a week – unfortunately that food is quite often your home.

Did you know that the CSIRO reports that there is an 80% chance that your home is within 25 metres of a termite nest? 

Unfortunately as termites are subterranean, you wouldn’t normally notice them until it’s too late. When thousands of termites are nearby in a nest, your home becomes an ideal food source. As they travel beneath the ground, they can eventually find their way up into your building through small cracks around plumbing penetrations in the slab or even via the weep holes.  

What’s most concerning is that they only need the smallest of openings to gain access to your home, 1mm in fact! 

Unfortunately, as noted above, most homeowners typically don’t know termites have gained access to their home until a significant amount of damage has been caused. Whilst termites can be selective with what they eat first, they will literally eat anything made from timber – including gyprock, furniture, chipboard flooring and even hardwood!

About the only thing they won’t eat is paint, which is why you’ll often discover you have termites by accidentally putting your vacuum through a skirting board or noticing the paint that once covered the skirting board, bubbling in front of your eyes. 

Suburban Pest only uses the best - Termidor

When it comes to termite protection of your greatest asset, Suburban Pest only uses the best, Termidor.

Since BASF released Termidor into the Australian market into 2002, it has rapidly grown to become the leading termite control product on the market. 

Unlike a lot of other chemicals on the market, Termidor has undergone considerable studies, field trials and extensive testing by Australian government agencies, universities and independent laboratories, which have all proven the effectiveness of the product beyond a doubt.

Still unsure if Termidor is the right product to protect your home from unwanted guests? Here are a few other reasons why we believe Termidor is the best form of termite protection.

Termidor’s unique transfer effect

What makes Termidor unlike any other product on the market, is its unique ‘transfer effect’. It is predominantly the transfer effect that makes the product so effective.

Termites are social insects that live together in large colonies and feed from each other. So termites that have come into contact with Termidor soon pass it onto others. Even those secondarily affected termites can also pass Termidor on through feeding or contact. 

Termidor can control whole termite populations faster than any other treatment, but it is relatively slow acting in individual termites. This means that termites have ample time before dying to spread Termidor to their nest and the entire colony.

Termites are able to detect the older chemicals in the soil and stay away from them. That means the termites remain active and unaffected, still exploring the area and potentially looking for ways into your home.

Termites can’t detect Termidor, so as they continue to forage through the soil, they unknowingly come into contact with Termidor. So when a single termite comes into contact with the chemically treated zone, the affected termite/s then passes the effects of the chemical onto the other termites in the colony unknowingly through their feeding and grooming process.

This is the transfer effect and it’s a key reason why no other termiticide performs as well as Termidor. 

Termidor’s $2M assurance warranty

Suburban Pest offer a service warranty on all Termidor treatments carried out and to compliment this, Termidor also offers their own warranty; which is a $2M assurance warranty (subject to your home construction type). 

Like most insurances, it is subject to terms and conditions – such as yearly inspections. Following an application, we provide our customers with advice and documentation that they need to understand to ensure the long term integrity of the barrier is maintained.

Termidor is a proven product time after time

Suburban Pest Management have been using Termidor since its introduction in 2002 and have never had a single failure. This gives us total confidence in knowing that your biggest asset is adequately protected from uninvited guests of the termite species. 

Termidor works fast!

Termidor not only provides great protection from termites, but it does so quickly. A Termidor chemical barrier can literally kill off an entire colony within 30 days of application.

This is pretty powerful, especially when you know you have up to 8 years worth of ongoing protection once installed.

Termidor is a global brand

Termidor is a globally recognised brand, owned by BASF. They serve key industries in the agriculture, coatings, construction, manufacturing and mining sectors and have been active in Australia for more than 90 years.

Having such a huge brand means only the very best in terms of quality, support and effectiveness of the products being applied. It also gives confidence knowing that the company is well invested towards quality pest control.

Termidor now also has another option….Termidor HE 

Termidor now not only offers Termidor SC but also the new kid on the block; Termidor HE (High Efficiency) makes it much simpler to create even more flexible and consistent protection against termites for your home.

Termidor HE is an advanced formulation of the same extremely powerful active ingredient that has made the original Termidor product the most trusted and effective termite treatment.

Termidor HE spreads much further through the soil than older treatments to create a more even and effective protective zone termites cannot avoid.

Termidor HE binds strongly to organic matter in the soil and, as long as the soil isn’t disturbed, stays in place for years. So it’s not just superior protection at the start. It goes on providing the highest level of protection year after year.

This product is amazing and allows even more flexibility when it comes to treatment. Drill spacings can be drilled further apart (yay for no more drill holes in those beautiful tiles on your back patio) and HE spreads through the soil to create a deep, invisible, even and unbroken protective zone, giving you even more confidence in Termidor and the protection it provides!

‍‍Did you know that Suburban Pest are only one of a handful of QLD pest managers accredited to apply it?!

Don’t be fooled by cheap generics!

Like any product, we’ve seen a considerable increase in cheap or generic forms of Termidor available on the market. There is obviously an attraction when a pesticide comes off patent and people from all over the world start producing chemicals which, to all appearances, look the same as the original but at a far lower price. 

Most of these products are pitched as being ‘the same, but much cheaper’. This is just simply not true.

What customers fail to understand is that only 6% of the chemical contains Fipronil, which is available across many other inferior products. However, the other 94% is where the difference lies. Termidor offers a unique blend that is designed specifically to achieve the best possible results.

Termidor consists of a number of carefully selected and individually optimised ingredients to ensure a high quality product. These ingredients have a significant influence on the product during storage and application, quality and uniformity and the overall performance of the product.

The consistency of cheap imitations is usually poor and how do we know how the generic products will stack up in say 5 years time? It is obvious that these inferior products are not put through the rigorous testing and trial processes that Termidor underwent. Not to mention the $250,000,000 expenditure on Research & Development prior to its release to the market.  

This is another reason why we only use Termidor. Comparative studies carried out against cheaper brands have shown that on a number of key chemical properties that Termidor was up to 50 times more effective. 

Many of the cheaper brands:

• Possessed poor consistency, which could lead to poor application and coverage
• Failed to bind with the soil, which could cause ‘run off’
• Contained much less of the active ingredient Fipronil than stated
• Damaged pumps and equipment due to excess sediment and build up after only a few uses
• When you consider the value of your home and the risks involved it really isn’t worth taking the risk!

Ready to work with us?

Termidor has a proven track record. We have applied over 7,000 Termidor Chemical soil treatments over 25 years without a single failure. We have been using the product since its inception and haven’t had one failure yet. No product has ever proven as reliable — time after time, year after year!

It’s the only product we use and recommend for proven & effective termite treatments.

If you have concerns about the safety of your home or the termite protection in place, or you would like to discuss your options further, give us a call on 1300 65 65 72 and we’ll organise to have one of our inspectors come out and speak with you.