If you’ve noticed a small pile of fresh sawdust in your home, it is likely that your home is hosting wood borers. Wood borers burrow into the timber of your house and cause structural damage.
Types of Borers
Wood borers can be categorized into two types, those that cause extensive damage to the skeleton of your property, and those that cause minor damages and are usually cheaper to repair.
Good Borers
Pinhole, Dampwood, Powder Post, Longicorn, and Particoloured beetles are all types of borers that cause minor damage to properties. Let’s call these ‘good borers’.
Bad Borers
Whereas a Wood-boring Weevil and Furniture Beetles can cause structural damage to your premises – We’ll call these ‘bad borers’.
Good V Bad Borers
Good borers cause damage to timber in the first 5 years after timber has been milled. They mainly attack soft wood or moist, decaying timber, and the damage they cause can usually be fixed by filling the holes with putty and a quick repaint. However, bad borers are known to attack hardwood or softwood at any age, which will often cause structural damage and quite possibly require complete replacement of the timbers such as floorboards and major support beams.
Borer Treatments and Pricing
Borer treatment is a tricky one and should only be conducted by true pest control specialists. We treat Wood Borers with heat to ensure the insect and their eggs are terminated.
Each treatment is priced individually and will be assessed by our qualified technician to advise a suitable, and affordable treatment cost.
Borer Profile
Identify your borer pest problem with our list of borer profiles below.
Pinhole Borer
- Good borer – Causes superficial damage
- Adult female bores wood, creating a central tunnel with side branches to lay eggs
- Larvae do not feed on wood, instead, they eat fungus that grows on moist timber
- Stains wood
- Superficial damage
Dampwood Borer
- Good borer – Causes superficial damage
- Large beetle that attacks soft, decaying timber – as their name suggests
- Typically found in the sub-floor section of a property
- Can be eliminated by replacing soft and decaying timbers
- Superficial damage
Powder Post Beetle
- Good borer – Causes superficial damage
- Attacks sapwood of susceptible hardwoods
- Female lays eggs in exposed ends of freshly cut wood or damaged trees
- Larvae feed along the grain of the wood, never attacking the heartwood
- Causes superficial damage
Longicorn Beetle
- Good borer – Causes superficial damage
- Attack living trees – Once trees have been turned into housing or furniture, the larvae can still bore and later emerge as a beetle, giving the owners a surprise!
- Boring is done by larvae for up to 3 years
- Superficial damage
Particoloured Auger Beetle
- Good borer – Causes superficial damage
- Attacks logs, softwood, green timber and sapwood of hardwood
- Larvae feed along the grain of the wood and produce powdery excrement
- Will bore its way out of housing timbers
Furniture Beetle
- Bad borer – Causes structural damage
- Attacks softwoods used in flooring, paneling, and furniture
- Will attack old dry wood
- Female lays eggs in cracks of timber
- Larvae period takes several years and feeds extensively on timber, causing a honeycomb-like effect and weakening the wood.
Wood-boring Weevil
- Bad borer – Causes structural damage
- Attacks soft woods such as pine skirting boards
- Causes the same honeycomb effect as the Furniture Beetle, and compromises the structural integrity of the timber.
Contact Us
If you’re worried about borers in your home or business, please contact Enviro Guard Pest Management for a free quote on 1300 669 092 or send us an email enquiry.