Woodworm Infestation Advice, Diagnosis, Risks & Treatment

Woodworm is a wood-boring larva of the furniture beetle characterised by small round holes in your household timbers including floorboards, floor joists, loft joists and roof joists.

Woodworm infestation can be found in your property fittings such as skirting boards, door frames window sills or frames.

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Our surveyors will check your property thoroughly and always advise the best course of action to treat the problem.

There are a number of risks presented by allowing woodworm to remain untreated.

Several years ago a friend in the industry was surveying a property and upon his first step through the front door to the property, the joist below gave way and the floorboard crumbled from under his feet. As a result he broke his ankle.

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Treating Woodworm

There are a number of ways to treat woodworm in a property and it all depends on the location of the infected timber and the severity of the contamination.

If wood boring insects are suspected – such as the longhorn or deathwatch beetle – we will apply a special deep penetrating paste to the timber.

Once applied, the paste forms a protective skin allowing the active fungicide (IPIB) and insecticide (permethrin) to penetrate deep into the wood and get to work immediately.

For larger areas such as wooden floors we would carefully lift several floorboards to allow sufficient access to the underside of the floor.

The underside of the floor is sprayed with a special insecticide spray to kill any living insects and preserve your wooden floor. The backs of the lifted floorboards are then sprayed and refit and lastly the top of the floorboards are sprayed.

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Once the spraying process is complete, it is strongly advised you vacate the treated room for a minimum of one hour to allow the smell and airborne chemicals to dissipate.

For treatment in the loft space we would require the whole area to be cleared, including insulation.

We would then spray the loft floor, if applicable, all timbers and the loft eaves. Once sufficient time has passed you may return the insulation and other contents of the loft.