Protecting Your Investment

Protecting your Investment

          A home for most people is the biggest purchase they will ever make in their lifetime.  If you play your cards right and remember three most important rules in real estate: location, location, location, this large purchase will hopefully turn out to be an investment as well. So what can you do to protect this purchase against things that may drive down the value? Well of course you are required to have homeowner’s insurance that will protect you from natural disasters such as tornadoes. Or if you are my aunt, homeowners insurance will also protect you from an ice machine in your refrigerator that decides to quit while you are on vacation and pour water into your kitchen for 12 straight days! Unfortunately, homeowner’s insurance does not protect you from everything. After all as the owner, should you not be responsible for at least a few things? And if you are purchasing a new construction home, most builders will require you to be responsible for a few things as well.

            So, yes you are responsible for a few things that could cause damage to your home, new construction included. One of those things is Termites. We are all afraid of them. Those pesky little insects that make their way into our homes without us even noticing; and unfortunately that can be there for years before you pick up on them and have already caused horrific damage. So how can you prepare your new home to battle termites?  The answer is simple, pre-treatment. But, there are many different types of pre-treatments, so you will want to pick the one that is right for you. A pre-treatment is a preventative measure that you can do during the construction of your new home. Essentially you are taking out an “insurance policy” for your house against termites.

            There are three major forms of pre-treatment work that can be done: Soil treatment, perimeter treatment and structural treatment ( applied to the wooden studs themselves). A soil treatment is often times the most affordable method to give your home protection against termites. Before the slab for your home is poured, you can hire (or do yourself) a licensed pest control technician to come out to your home site and apply termiticide to the soil the foundation will eventually be poured on. This technique gives you a great head start against termites that could eventually invade your home. The next option and most often used is a barrier treatment that is done around the foundation itself. After the slab has been poured, either yourself or professional can go around the foundation and dig a trench that will serve as the barrier. The chemical will be applied to the trench at the appropriate rate that can be found within the product’s label. Afterwards the dirt will be filled back in. This method can offer years of protection against subterranean termites depending on the product used. The last method can only be achieved by a handful of products. Bora Care or Tim-Bor can be applied directly to the wooden studs for all first floor walls of your new home. Both products are made from Boron, a naturally occurring element. When termites come across this stuff, they become dehydrated and die. This is an excellent method for long term control of multiple species of termites.