Thread: Termite treated Timber for Window Frames

Most window reveals were done in pacific maple. You could replace it with LOSP treated timber. Will protect against ants and decay.

will it protect against white ants (termites) ?

Yes, provided it is H3. LOSP comes in two forms H2 (red colour) and H3 (clear to slightly greenish) not to be confused with CCA (copper chrom arsenic.)
LOSP stands for light organic solvent preservative. It contains an insectacide (synthetic pyrethroid) that works very well on white ants and harmless to humans.

I hope that you have had a good look at the framing. The little buggers have come up from the ground via some timber somewhere.

I havent had a good look as yet as I did not want to start pulling windows out without having everything ready to start again.
From what I can see, the stud frame work is all hardwood and they have left that alone and had a good feed on the more softer stuff. They have attacked the neighbouring bathroom window frame and then moved directly over to the other side of the house and ate that bedrooms window frame. Thats all I have found. Everywhere they have been they have left the hardwood studs alone. Years ago they ate my MDF cabinets off the garage wall and left the hardwood studs behind the cabinets untouched. I went out there one morning to find the cabinets and contents on the concrete floor. I thought I had been broken into but IT WAS TERMITES ! So I built steel shelving instead.
Thanks for the timber info so far. I will go down to a few timber yards and get what I need.
When I have pulled the windows out and removed what is left of the surrounds, would it be a good idea to spray the exposed studs and surrounding areas with some sort of termite spray before I re-build and if so, what would be a good spray to use ?
Thanks.

You need to find the nest. Interesting you say the bathroom window wasn the first to get attacked. This is a common thing as white ants need constant, stable humidity. Where is your garage in relation to bathroom? Is your home slab on ground?

the house and garage are joined together on a concrete slab. The garage is right down the end and the bathroom is in the middle of the house. the windows in between the shed and bathroom on that side of the house were not touched except for the bathrooms neighbouring bedroom. The other bedroom is right opposite that bedroom on the other side of the house , just a hallway seperating them.
I got a price for some H3 treated and primed 116 x 18mm pine at $5.86 per mtr. Should this be ok or should I be looking at other treated timbers ?
Thanks.

Yes, that's the right stuff. Shop around for price but watch the quality.
Sounds like you may have a significant white ant problem there. What steps have been taken for protection? Do you know what the sub slab area was treated with when the house was built and how long ago?

we've been here 26 years and up untill say 5 yrs ago, no termite problems. Would not have a clue what and if there was any protection before our time. We did have one supposedly "licensed" clown come in about 3 yrs ago who drilled holes everywhere around the external walls and supposedly forced into them whatever they use for termite protection but he was a con job. He was contracted to come back and inspect the premises every 3 mths but once he was paid, never saw him again. Tried to track him down but no success. He was operating out of the Redlands area in Brisbane.
Bought the H3 today and tomorrow will be the start of repairing the damaged window frames. Still angry. I got more positive things to do than having to run after and repair termite damage.

Maybe a good idea to get a reputable inspector in. White ants tend to eat their prefered woods first. Once they are no longer available they progress to the next specie. A hardwood frame is not off the menu. When the house was built and passed by council, a treatment certificate should have been lodged. Council should be able to tell you what was used and when. Hopefully, the chemical used was one of the long lasters (since banned) as they would still be protective today.

today has been rebuild day. What a day. Took out the old window & frame. It would not give up easy, ended up having to chisel the remaining frame out of its position as it was well nailed in. Had to remove a few surrounding lengths of hardiplank as well. Went ballistic with the termite spray over the remaining hardwood once i had cleaned it all up. Soaked in well. All the top and right hand frame side were eaten out and not existant under the paint work. They had eaten it all out and long gone. But I found heaps of dead termites along one section of the bottom frame as I had previously sprayed everywhere yesterday through a few tiny holes in the paintwork.

Made up the new frame ok (that was the easy bit ) but it got a bit heavy for 1 person to lift the window and hold it in place. Had to wait 2 hours for son in law to come over and help out. Finally got it all back in place , replaced the hardiplank and will have to get some new bullnose architrave to finish it all off inside. Then a paint job on the new frame and architrave.

Does bullnose architrave come in a termite treated timber ?