Want to save $500 on the sale of your house? Walk around your house and look for any wood that is touching the ground. What you are looking for are simple things that look normal. That piece of wood you have been looking at forever could cost you. The buyer's lender will require a termite inspection and if termites are found in, on, under or within 2 feet of any structure on the property, the seller ends up fixing the damage and treat the area to prevent the termites from coming back. A termite treatment will cost $500+-.
You may not know this but termites are everywhere on the Outer Banks. The odds are that you have termites on your property and just don't know about it yet. The soil and climate is ideal here for colonies to set up home in your home and start feasting on the wood that makes up your house. If you see a board on the ground, pick it up and look to see if there are tunnels carved in the under side of the wood. If there are not any termite tunnels, lay the board back down and wait. They will come.
The only thing that keeps them from becoming a problem is treatment. On most newer houses, the builder was required to treat the ground around pilings prior to construction to prevent termite infestation. But this does not do anything for wood that is not directly under the house. Pilings are treated, not the space between them.
One of the most commonly found termite infestations are in the form boards used to install concrete driveways and walkways. The wood to make the forms should be removed but all too often it isn't. The boards actually look like they belong there and so go unknown to everyone except the bug inspector.
Landscape timbers are another favorite hangout for the little critters, make sure there are none within 2 feet of the overhang. Wood under a deck but not near the house also triggers a treatment. So if you have wooden chairs, furniture, saw horses, or firewood under a deck or close to the house, move it away from the house.
I have seen a piece of wood the size of your hand trigger a termite treatment.
