Woodworm treatment products

[SilverSaloon]

Thank you everyone for your advice.

The cottage is a stone built one from 1850. We get the keys end of this week.

The house is indeed damp (but not much compared to others we have seen) and "specialists/salesman" have already advised on the chemical damp proof course etc. I've read lots about all that on here and other sites and i'll be giving that a wide berth. The woodworm issue is also identified by the specialist - i've not seen it myself, although I didnt specifically check for it. I note that house is damp because its been empty for over a year, gutters are blocked and missing in places, kitchen roof leaks, and airbricks are blocked up from an extension added at some point. some floorboards are rotted.

When we get the keys i'll be taking up the floors to check the timbers and also removing all the attic insulation to treat the woodworm & put new insulation down. Hopefully the woodworm also doesnt exist and its just the specialist touting for business.

thanks for everyones help - i'll give it a few weeks after being in the property before i get out any chemicals to see whats what 1st.

Derek

 

[DJH]

You miss my point I think, read again....

How can you, without drastic 'modern' methods and materials, keep a period property warm and dry yet still let damp floors and walls breathe. I'm all for most modern materials especially the stainless steel fixings available now from tacks to joist hangers

So secondary glazing, brushes under doors, electricity cables and fuse boards, showers and bathrooms fed by plastic pipes, tvs, sky dishes/aerials, flue liners, pressed steel panel radiators, vents from cooker hoods, fitted kitchens, soil stacks and pipes, posidrive or similar sheradised or plated screws, telephones the list goes on ad infinitum. Where's the authenticity there ?

There has to be more than a nod to modern materials and a judicious marriage between the two can work perfectly well.

Doug

 

[Flyfisher]

I think Doug makes a good point.
I'd wager a small sum that there is nobody on PPUK living an authentically 'period' lifestyle in an authentically 'period' house (however that could be defined).

 

[Lime]

You miss my point I think, read again....

How can you, without drastic 'modern' methods and materials, keep a period property warm and dry yet still let damp floors and walls breathe. I'm all for most modern materials especially the stainless steel fixings available now from tacks to joist hangers

So secondary glazing, brushes under doors, electricity cables and fuse boards, showers and bathrooms fed by plastic pipes, tvs, sky dishes/aerials, flue liners, pressed steel panel radiators, vents from cooker hoods, fitted kitchens, soil stacks and pipes, posidrive or similar sheradised or plated screws, telephones the list goes on ad infinitum. Where's the authenticity there ?

There has to be more than a nod to modern materials and a judicious marriage between the two can work perfectly well.

Doug

You are being pedantic.

No one is suggesting complete authenticity, just that if there is an original method of doing something on a house then use it.
Modern methods are not a direct equivalent and often have unforeseen consequences.

 

[Sonyaclegg]

I can chip in here. We have half the downstairs floors with a dpc/concrete put in by the previous owner and the other half is original flags over earth. Both are working equally well. There is no water being driven up the wall where the dpc is in place. I feel there is a place for modern materials if used with consideration, thought and care. I would not be working on my building now if it were not for the use of some modern materials as the costs to replace all the original materials would have been so prohibitively expensive. The building would have been lost.

 

[DJH]

Hmm, can't agree with your description of pedantry but, were it true, I'm quite happy to share it with you. Maintaining authenticity can be described as pastiche even using original methods which, incidentally at some time were modern themselves. Any intervention in an old property reduces it's authenticity from stripping away so called accretions that have been added through the years simply because we think they are ugly or out of place, to driving a nail in an historic beam to hang up a balloon.

At what stage do we place materials under a 'modern' heading? Plasterboard for example, was 'invented' in the late 19th century and went into production in the UK in 1902 so has been in use for well over a hundred years.

Getting back to my original question......

How can you, without drastic 'modern' methods and materials, keep a period property warm and dry yet still let damp floors and walls breathe.

 

[88v8]

The woodworm will not always disappear when the house is dry. If ever it does so disappear... I suspect it disappears when it has eaten all the edible wood.

We have an oak bookcase, 1920s, the shelves are ply. Woodworm loves ply... in our previous house, definitely not damp, the worm munched away at the shelves until terminated by some fluid. Frass, new holes. But not any more...

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

This might sound like stating the obvious but surely all materials, traditional or modern need to be used skillfully, intelligently and appropriately. I think it is objectionable that so much damage is caused by indiscriminate, ignorant and inappropriate use of modern materials but i don't object to modern materials per se.

 

[Matt Green]

We have an oak bookcase, 1920s, the shelves are ply. Woodworm loves ply...

They do. And cheap particleboard like the sort used to hang electricity meters. Modern stuff is pre-treated, but go back a few years and cheap, fast grown timber like that used in those items was commonly available on the market. Furniture beetle don't like oak though, which makes it curious why you mentioned it. They weren't in the casement, I'll bet, just the plywood shelves. So perhaps what you really should have said was:

"I had some cheap, fast grown untreated softwood ply placed up against a wall in my old house and there was active furniture beetle in it until I brush treated it with an insecticide." At which point everyone nods sagely in agreement. As it is though you could be misinterpreted as thinking that all timber is equally likely to be attacked by furniture beetle which is, of course, complete nonsense.

Original poster: do nothing. Vacuum the alleged affected area thoroughly and give it a good dusting. Check back in a year. If you have fresh dust, brush treat the affected areas with any commercially available insecticide.

 

[CliffordPope]

I have always been sceptical of this assertion that woodworm don't attack dry wood, only damp. It simply does not fit with my observation.
I have had bone dry timber adjacent to a warm chimney breast absolutely pulverised by woodworm attack. Yet the same timber permanently damp from a weaping water pipe was unscathed. Why do woodworm have an especially liking for wooden tools hung in a dry workshop, but ignore a wooden-handled brush stored in a damp cupboard?

 

[Matt Green]

I have always been sceptical of this assertion that woodworm don't attack dry wood, only damp. It simply does not fit with my observation.
I have had bone dry timber adjacent to a warm chimney breast absolutely pulverised by woodworm attack. Yet the same timber permanently damp from a weaping water pipe was unscathed. Why do woodworm have an especially liking for wooden tools hung in a dry workshop, but ignore a wooden-handled brush stored in a damp cupboard?

It fits with mine. The proportion of sapwood is likely to be a factor in the tool handles too. Sapwood has fewer compounds that are insect toxic and there is, generally, more nitrogen in sapwood, making it a more attractive proposition to get energy from. Heartwood is more dense than sapwood too and less hygroscopic. All of which leads to a higher risk of attack.

 

[DJH]

I have always wondered why worm took a particular liking to the handles of tools and now I know. Thanks for that explanation Matt. They never seem to bothered about my box and lignum vitae tools, I can only assume that they are too hard for them although they do get a wipe of linseed oil now and then and I'm wondering if that might put them off.

This might sound like stating the obvious but surely all materials, traditional or modern need to be used skillfully, intelligently and appropriately. I think it is objectionable that so much damage is caused by indiscriminate, ignorant and inappropriate use of modern materials but i don't object to modern materials per se.

Sums it up perfectly PP.

Doug

 

[88v8]

We have an oak bookcase, 1920s, the shelves are ply. Woodworm loves ply...

They do. .... Furniture beetle don't like oak though, which makes it curious why you mentioned it. They weren't in the casement, I'll bet, just the plywood shelves. So perhaps what you really should have said was:

"I had some cheap, fast grown untreated softwood ply placed up against a wall in my old house and there was active furniture beetle in it until I brush treated it with an insecticide." At which point everyone nods sagely in agreement. As it is though you could be misinterpreted as thinking that all timber is equally likely to be attacked by furniture beetle which is, of course, complete nonsense.

You are right. Not that they don't like oak as well, they just like ply more. But the point in the context of the discussion, was that they liked dry ply.

Ivor

 

[Matt Green]

But dry in relation to what?

This racy page-turner of a document:
Standard Number: EN 49-2-1992 Title: wood preservatives - determination of the protective effectiveness against Anobium punctatum (de geer) by egg-laying and larval survival - part 2: application by impregnation (laboratory method)

Gives optimal breeding conditions for furniture beetle. Eggs don't hatch when the ambient relative humidity is below 45%. At 20C that equates to a equilibrium wood moisture content (EMC) of 8.5% using: http://www.csgnetwork.com/emctablecalc.html Below 65% and the number of eggs hatching never exceeds 80% which is 12% EMC.

It real world terms: plywood next to a cold wall is not dry. The relative humidity of the air around the plywood it likely to be raised- especially on bookshelves, meter boards and the rear of upright pianos (another good source of furniture beetles). Now wood in that situation it might be as dry as you can practicably get it, but that doesn't mean that it's dry. High risk timber products like low quality plywood are going to get attacked in situations like that: but it doesn't mean that one should treat all accessible dry timber in their house.

The point I'm making is that they like ply because ply is cheap sapwood and, as such, tends to get used in situations where it does not show: which are exactly the sort of places that increase the risk of furniture beetle attack. It is dangerous to jump to the conclusion that furniture beetle attack dry wood from this set of circumstances.

 

[stuart45]

Ones of the chippies at work reckons they like the glue in joints. Is that right?

 

[Lime]

Ones of the chippies at work reckons they like the glue in joints. Is that right?

Not in my experience.