Can a Termite Infested House be Saved?

If termites have badly damaged your home, you might panic and wonder whether you can save a termite-infested house or if it is too far gone. This can be a terrible situation to be in.

In almost all cases, homes with termite damage can be repaired and made secure again, although extensive damage may be difficult and expensive to address. You will need a professional team to ensure that the structure is made sound again and your home is safe to inhabit.

In this article, we’ll explore the kinds of damage that termites often do to the fabric of a home and how you might approach repairs.

What Sort of Damage do Termites do?

Termites can damage many parts of the home, and you may see their effects on the walls, ceilings, and floors. If you have a terrible termite infestation, some common signs include:

• Buckling ceilings
• Water damage on the walls
• Sagging walls
• Doors and windows that won’t close properly
• Spongy and unsafe flooring
• Wrecked door frames
• Blistering paint
• Hollow-sounding wood
• The smell of mold
• Mud tunnels inside the walls
• Small holes in the woodwork of your house
• A honeycomb pattern in the wood of your house
• Damage to your wooden furniture
• Damage to your wallpaper and other paper-based items

In some cases, you might also see termite droppings and shed wings, although there is no guarantee that these will be visible, even if you have a terrible termite infestation.

Don’t ignore any of the signs above because the faster you deal with termite damage, the less expensive the repairs will be.

As soon as you see any indication that your home has termites, you need to call professionals to assess and deal with the situation.

Do not try to address termites by yourself. They can be difficult to eradicate, and the consequences of failing to get rid of them may be severe.

Remember that you often won’t see signs of a termite infestation until it has already gone quite a long way. The faster you can act, the less damage there will be, but you may already face severe structural problems. So don’t wait to deal with this.

What Might Need Repairing in a Termite-Damaged Home

Many parts of the house could need repairing. The wooden parts of your home are the most likely to have been damaged by these insects, but other elements may have also suffered from the termites.

If the wood that supported walls and ceilings has been robbed of its strength, it may have put the other materials under stress, resulting in warping, bending, or breakage.

That may mean you must fix things like plaster, wallpaper, hardboard, or other materials.

Often, termites result in moisture problems, and this can cause mold, which might affect almost any material in your home. For example, you may need to replace materials like carpet and floor molding. 

Additionally, termites can attack your furniture, so be aware that you may need to replace things like chairs, tables, sideboards, bookcases, and more. They won’t attack non-wooden furniture, but the dampness they can cause may be problematic here too.

How to Tell if Wood has Been Damaged

One of the surest signs of termites is that wood sounds hollow when you tap on it. This is because the termites will have eaten away at the internal wood, making spaces that echo when you knock on it.

Undamaged wood should sound firm and solid when you knock on it with your knuckles.

If you tap on a door frame, window frame, or other solid wooden structure that sounds hollow, you likely have termites inside it.

When to Act

Termites are so dangerous to homes because they are hard to detect. A termite infestation is usually present inside the walls and floors, not in the visible parts of your home.

The insects could reside in your house for months or years without being detected.

The faster you act, the less damage the termites will have done. However, if you don’t notice the infestation for years, there will likely be significant damage.

The house can probably still be saved, but you may find that serious reconstruction is needed to make it sound again. This is particularly true if the house uses wood in its structure rather than as a decorative feature.

Termites can rob beams of their security, making your ceilings sag or hollow out flooring so that it needs to be replaced. If you don’t address these things quickly, you will need much more repair work.

There is no specific time frame in which you must address termites to save a home because this will depend on how bad the infestation is, how quickly they eat the wood, and how your house is designed.

However, the longer you leave the termites to eat away at the structures, the more expensive and challenging it will be to save the property.

The Cost of Repairing Termite Damage

Unfortunately, there is no answer about how much termite damage will cost to repair because it entirely depends on how bad the damage is.

If you catch the termites very early and they have only done minor damage to a couple of door frames or a bookcase, repairing this could be around a hundred dollars.

However, if you don’t realize that there are termites in your home and the damage is extensive, you will probably look at thousands or even tens of thousands.

It will be costly if you have to replace flooring, walls, and ceilings.

Additionally, because the damage is usually inside the walls, you will have the redecorating costs to deal with on top of the repair costs.

You should get quotes from multiple firms to find the best price and ensure that you aren’t getting ripped off, but it’s essential to be aware that termite damage can be pretty expensive to handle.

You also need to consider the cost of the firm which will get rid of the termites for you. Who you choose may be expensive too, but it is critical to do this before you start the repair work, or you may find the termites damage your new wood before you have a chance to deal with them.

Don’t try to deal with termites yourself because there is a high risk that you won’t effectively eliminate them.

Conclusion

If you have a terrible termite infestation in your house, this does not mean that the house is lost and cannot be repaired – but you should be aware that the repairs are likely to be expensive, and you will need to replace a lot of the wood

. Termites can be devastating in some homes, so act quickly if you think you have them in yours.