Lower toxicity woodworm treatment

[Michael]

A couple of years ago I sprayed the underside of my dining room suspended floor with Wickes woodworm killer. I recently noticed new exit holes in the Osmo waxed floorboards and discovered that a couple of joist ends have been quite badly affected. Not sure if they were like that originally as the areas are out of sight and were probably not effectively treated being harder to get at. I don't want to use more of the same product and do not want to mix different organic compounds for health reasons. I don't know what if anything was applied before I bought the Edwardian house but cocktails of organic long-lasting chemicals are bad news. Boron products look the safest but looking for products I see that I can buy di Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate GPC at a fraction of the cost of disodium octaborate tetrahydrate. The latter seems to be available from one supplier

and the former from obviously don't want the false economy of saving money now and spending a lot more on timber in the future. Does anyone know if both chemicals are effective for treating woodworm?

[cynic]

If they are still around Sovereign Chemicals of Barrow in Furness had a product called deepkill paste which killed all known insect and dry rot infestation. I am not aware of any human casualties so I would not spend too much time worrying myself into a frenzy over something which isn't going to keep me awake at night. My descendants can sue who they like if I die before I get older than I am now.

[Michael]

Looked at Sovereign - they don't see Boron chemicals. Maybe I should ask the question on a chemistry forum

[NT]

its unusa to be unable to find answers to such things with google. Chem-name woodworm should do it

NT

[Chris George]

I am uncertain as to the law on an individual amateur applying a chemical for such use but would be surprised if it is significantly different to that which applies to professional users. It is against the COPR (1986) to buy sell store use etc etc any chemical as a pesticide without it first having been passed by the HSE testing and vetting procedure and having been given an HSE number. That was true then and it is even truer now when the Eurocrats have even told us that we cannot use established products unless we spend many tens of thousands of pounds providing efficacy and other data. Consenquently, we have fewer of our traditional effective pesticides as the manufacturers cannot afford to pay to prove them ok

Wikes woodworm killer was probably in an organic solvent (professional ones generally are water borne carriers of the active ingredient carried in an emuslsion). IF you have local infestation on a few joist ends I would treat them and anywhere else that you think you may have missed. I would then put some paper on the top - tissue or lining paper of the affected timbers and look at them in September

2011 to look for any post treatment emergence. Absent any and you have fixed it - If you look at it each Sept of each year you can get a graph of the (hopefully) declining post treatment emergence - which is a normal phenomenon for treated wood.

I suggest it is a waste of time to make your own chemicals and may well be illegal and lead to being used as evidence in criminal proceedings against you. I ceased to use Sovereign Chemicals 20 years ago when they stopped my firms account without notice just because of too infrequent use of it and keep telling their salesmen each time they knock on my door trying to set up one that they should not have unilaterally and rudely cut off my credit account. I have been with Safeguard Chemicals ever since. Chris d

[Andy Champ]

Michael,

It occurred to me that the main reason our houses aren't all riddled with woodworm is that they are just too dry. You don't have any damp around do you?

Andy

[Thomas Prufer]

AFAIK they are both effective. From what I recall when looking into it a few years ago, when in similar circumstances: The difference between the two is in the solubility in water. There needs to be a minimum amount of boron in the timber. To reach this, a borax solution needs to be applied more often (ISTR ten to twelve times), or as a very hot solution (as more will dissolve in the water as long as it's hot). The octaborate aka Tim-Bor is more soluble, and ISTR three cold or two warm applications are sufficient.

Someone else in the thread has commented on the issue of regulatory approval.

Thomas Prufer