Carpenter Ants Wood Floor

Carpenter ants build nests in dead and damp wood by cutting tunnels through the wood for passageways.

Carpenter ants wood floor. Carpenter ants love damaged wood. Carpenter ants rarely nest in dry wood. Like termites carpenter ants make tunnels in decomposing wood. Carpenter ants also are usually red black or all red all black or all brown.

Carpenter ants typically seek wood that has been. Carpenter ants prefer to nest in structural lumber such as in wall voids hollow doors windows and foam panels. Indoor infestations can be tracked by points of entry such as attic vents foundations cracks electric wires pipes and telephone lines. The worker carpenter ants will excavate sawdust like debris around or below the exit holes.

Over time the tunnels weaken the wood and the damage to structural wood creates a big problem. Carpenter ants are one of the most common insect infestations a home can have. Call a hardwood flooring repair specialist to fix the damage. Carpenter ants don t feed on the wood like most people assume they burrow their way into wet rotting wood in search of a new abode.

How do carpenter ants get inside a home. They burrow into wood to make their nests causing damage to not only your hardwood floors but to the structure of your home as well. Frightening yet easy to detect these ants are large black or black and red in the mid section. One sign of carpenter ant damage is the appearance of small circular galleries on the surface of the wood.

Getting rid of carpenter ants and keeping them out also means ferreting out the damaged wood in which they began to build their nest and removing it. If an infestation is severe you may notice carpenter ant damage in the form of wood shavings beneath window sills and other wood objects in your home. Carpenter ants love wet and or moldy wood so if there is a moisture issue in any part of your home they ll be attracted to those areas. The carpenter ant is attracted to water damaged wood.

All carpenter ants produce. Carpenter ant wood galleries. In fact you can often avoid chemicals altogether by replacing any wet and damaged wood in which the carpenter ants are nesting and repairing conditions causing the damage such as roofing or. Their bodies span between 6 to 17 mm depending on if it is a worker ant or a queen ant.

Peter fahey is flooring division manager at clem lumber distributing in alliance ohio and is an nwfacp certified inspector. Photo by richard bartz munich makro freak. However carpenter ants don t always get into your home by chewing their way through wood. Regarding ants customers can be reassured that although carpenter ants can be a sign of wet and damaged wood small ants are a nuisance not related to flooring or other wood.