Tent or no tent: reading a drywood termite quote in Tampa Bay

From April into the summer, warm evenings around the bay bring the same scene to a lot of windows: dozens or hundreds of small winged insects at the glass, then a drift of shed wings on the sill the next morning. In the older neighborhoods of Tampa and St. Petersburg those are usually drywood termite swarmers, and they come out of a colony that has been in the house for years. The quote that follows the inspection is where most of the money is decided, so this is how to read it.

First, the species

Drywood termites live inside dry wood with no contact with the soil: window frames, fascia, attic framing, door jambs, furniture. Their droppings are small, dry, six-sided pellets that pile up under a pinhole in the wood. Subterranean termites, the eastern kind and the Formosan kind, come up from the ground through mud tubes and are treated in the soil, never with a tent. A quote that proposes a tent without naming drywood termites, or proposes a tent for subterranean activity, has skipped the step that matters. Ask which species the inspector found and where.

What a tent does, and what it costs you in days

Structural fumigation seals the house under tarps and fills it with a gas that reaches every piece of wood, including the colonies nobody found. It is the one drywood treatment with that reach. The price of that reach is the preparation: two to three days out of the house, food and medicine removed or bagged in the fumigator’s bags, plants and pets out, the gas shut off, and the house aired and cleared before anyone returns. In Florida the company doing it holds the fumigation category on its state license, with a licensed fumigator in charge, and warning signs go on the tent for the duration.

When a spot treatment is the right call

A single infested window frame, a section of fascia, a piece of furniture, a short run of attic framing that the inspector could reach: those are spot-treatment jobs. The technician injects a borate or a foam into the galleries, or treats the piece with heat, and the colony in that wood dies. The limit is reach. A spot treatment handles the colonies the inspection found; it does nothing for the one behind the plaster that nobody saw. The honest quote says how many colonies were found, where, and why the inspector is or is not confident those are all of them. In a 1920s bungalow with a century of drywood history, that confidence is harder to have than in a 1990s block house with one infested door frame.

What the quote should say

• The species, by name, and the evidence: pellets, kick-out holes, damaged wood, swarmers.
• Every location found, on a diagram or a list, with photos.
• The treatment proposed for each location, and for a tent, the fumigant, the preparation list and the days out.
• The company’s state license number and the fumigation category if a tent is proposed.
• The warranty: retreatment only or retreatment and repair, the annual renewal cost, what inspections it includes and what voids it.
• What is excluded: detached structures, fences, furniture, areas that could not be inspected.

The warranty lines that matter

Most termite agreements renew every year. A retreatment warranty means the company comes back and treats again if termites return; a repair warranty means it also pays for new damage up to a stated limit. Read the exclusions. Untreated additions, a new roof that was never inspected, moisture problems that were noted and not fixed, and a missed renewal payment are the usual ways a warranty quietly ends. If the house might be sold in the next few years, ask whether the warranty transfers to a buyer; in both counties it is a real selling point.

Two quotes

The inspecting company can quote the treatment in Florida, and most do. A second inspection and quote from another licensed company is worth the morning it takes, especially when the first quote is a tent. If the second inspector finds the same colonies and reaches the same conclusion, the tent is probably right. If the second one finds two reachable colonies and proposes a spot treatment with a warranty, you have a decision instead of a bill.

Related pages

• Termite inspection and treatment
• WDO inspection for a home sale
• Pest control in Tampa