The worst thing I've watched a homeowner do took about four seconds. Brick veneer place in Figtree, active workings running up the inside of the garage wall, and before I could get a word out the owner had grabbed a can of surface spray off the shelf and hosed the mud tube.
Natural reaction, and it cost them. Spray or knock down a mud lead and the colony abandons that run, re-routes somewhere you can't see, and you've thrown away the one thing that made the job straightforward: live workings you can put bait straight onto. Put the can down, don't poke the tube, don't peel back the skirting for a look. Ring someone and leave them where they are.
That's the part nobody tells you, so it goes first.
Two different jobs, often confused
Once activity is confirmed there are two things you can do, and they're aimed at different problems.
Colony elimination deals with the termites currently eating your house. That's baiting: stations loaded with an insect growth regulator, set in the ground around the property or straight onto the active workings. Foragers feed, carry it back, share it around the way termites do, and the colony can't moult properly and collapses. Not instant, though. A few weeks to a few months depending on the season and the size of the nest, with return visits to check and replenish.
Protecting the structure is separate: a chemical management zone in the soil around the perimeter and through any slab penetrations. Modern termiticides are non-repellent, so termites walk through the treated soil without detecting it and carry it back on themselves. That won't kill the nest in the neighbour's stump. It stops the ones that come next reaching your timber.
Most active infestations need a version of both. If a quote covers one and doesn't explain why it skips the other, ask.
What actually drives the price
An inspection is a fairly predictable number, and we've covered what a termite inspection costs around here separately. Treatment isn't, and anyone giving you a firm price over the phone without seeing the place is guessing. What moves it:
- Linear metres of perimeter. A compact villa and a rambling weatherboard on a big block are different amounts of trenching.
- What's in the way. Soil you can trench is cheap. A concrete path, driveway or paved patio against the wall gets drilled every 200-300mm, injected, then plugged and made good. That's where the hours go.
- Slab or subfloor. A slab-on-ground home needs drilling at the slab edge and around pipe penetrations. A subfloor means crawling the whole footprint in the dirt.
- Which product. Termiticides carry different expected service lives, and the longer-lived ones cost more up front. Usually worth it.
- Baiting adds visits. The stations are the small part. The return trips to monitor and top them up are the real cost, and they're what makes it work.
A full perimeter treatment on an average Illawarra home is a four-figure job, and the honest range is wide enough that putting a number here would mislead you. Get two or three quotes, check whether each states GST, and compare what's in them rather than the figure at the bottom.
The cheap quote usually isn't one
The quotes that come in dramatically under everyone else are normally doing less. Spot-treating the area where activity was found and leaving the rest of the perimeter open. No warranty. No annual inspection built in. No durable notice.
That last one matters more than it sounds. Termite management work is done to AS 3660 — part 1 covers new builds, part 2 covers remedial work on a house that's already standing. The National Construction Code's termite provisions spell out what the durable notice has to carry, and the same practice follows through to remedial jobs: the system used, the date, its expected life, and when it needs looking at again, fixed somewhere prominent like the meter box. If you sell later, that's your proof the work was done properly. Ask for it.
Two more things. In NSW whoever applies the chemical must hold a pest management technician licence from the EPA, and that licence belongs to the individual rather than the company, so you can ask to see it. And every termite warranty I've come across is conditional on an annual inspection. Miss it and the protection you paid for quietly stops being protection.
Found something and not sure what you're looking at? Don't touch it, and give us a call. We'll confirm what's active, explain which of the two jobs your place needs, and put it in writing. Start with what a timber pest inspection covers, and if you're mid-purchase, read why the pest half of a building and pest inspection matters before you sign.
Need a hand with this in your home? Get a free quote or call 0430 007 651.