Oakton Termite Control

The Walkout Lower Level

Build on a slope and you get a walkout basement. The front of the lower level is buried in soil and the back opens onto a patio. That buried wall holds moisture against the foundation, and the rear slab sits right at grade. Most Oakton owners have finished that lower level with drywall, carpet, and a rec room. It makes a great space. It also covers the sill plate and foundation walls where termite activity shows up first. By the time anyone notices, the damage behind a basement baseboard can run the length of a wall.

Elevated Decks and Screened Porches

The raised deck off the kitchen is standard on Oakton colonials and contemporaries. It stands on posts that go down into footings, with stairs that land on the grass. It is fastened to the house with a ledger board bolted straight into the rim joist. Termites that climb a post or the stair stringers can follow that ledger into the house. Leaves pile up under the deck and hold water against the posts. Screened porches built out over the slope carry the same risk with more wood involved.

Railroad Ties and Firewood

Lots of sloped yards here were terraced decades ago with railroad ties or landscape timbers. Those walls are wood sitting in damp soil, and after 30 years many are soft and crumbling. The same goes for firewood stacked at the edge of the woods or under the deck. We check both on every inspection. Our article on termites in firewood covers how far to keep a woodpile from the house.

Oakton gets both, often in the same few weeks of spring. Termites swarm from about March into May, usually on a warm day right after rain. So do carpenter ants, which are all over Oakton's oak-shaded lots. Here is the quick way to tell them apart. Termites have a straight, thick waist and four wings of the same length that snap off easily. Ants have a pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and front wings longer than the back pair. Our guide to flying ants vs. termites has side-by-side photos. If it turns out to be ants, see our Oakton ant control page.

Swarmers come out through whatever small gap they can find. In a walkout home that is often the lower-level slider or a crack in the slab. A pile of loose wings in the door track or on the basement floor means a mature colony is close by. Outside of swarm season, look for:

• Pencil-width dirt tubes on deck posts, stair stringers, or the exposed foundation under the deck
• Tubes along the garage wall where the slab meets the block
• Timber retaining walls that crumble or show mud-lined tunnels
• Bubbled paint or soft spots on lower-level baseboards and door frames
• A lawn spot that keeps sinking, which can mean buried wood below

Found one? Leave it alone and call us. Breaking open a mud tube or spraying it just sends the termites somewhere we cannot see them.