Team
I live in San Antonio, Texas. I am replacing the siding on my house in the beginning of December. They will remove all of the cedar siding on my house and install OSB plywood and James Hardie siding.
While the current siding is removed, what would you recommend to spray in the wall of my house to prevent pests? My primary issues are roaches and small ants.
I seldom spray my home. When I do, I use Maxxthor SC inside and around the perimeter. I am looking for something that might be more permanent in the walls of the home. Also, where should I spray it: only along the bottom of the inside walls (3-4′ up) or all the way up to the attic studs?
Thank you for your help,
R.J.
We have several options. Ultimately there is no “right or wrong” choice. Assuming these hidden spaces are pest free at this time, anything applied will help keep it that way and should be viewed as a type of “insurance” to guard against future pest issues.
The first treatment would be to dust. XEMPT D will last 1-2 years and as a desiccant and will keep pests from wanting to use any space where this dust is present. It’s waterproof and repellent by nature. Generally it’s most commonly used to keep pests “out” of living spaces by treating electric outlets, around AIR VENTS and light fixtures. Now if you are able to treat into wall voids like you will soon have access to once the siding is removed, you can get even better protection. This happens because you can be sure to cover all the vital areas. When dusting into these same spaces using a small drill hole, complete coverage is hard to achieve.
The next option would be to spray something like the MAXXTHOR SC you’ve been using. Maxxthor SC is designed for inside treatments because it’s highly refined, odorless and sits on treated surfaces very well. But in a wall void, not a good option – especially if you reside where there could be wood destroying pests like TERMITES, POWDER POST BEETLES or CARPENTER ANTS. So if you want to use the “best” option in a liquid spray form, MAXXTHOR EC would be the way to go.
Maxxthor EC has a slight odor but you will only be using 1/3 of an oz per gallon of water and so any odor is minimal. Once dry, it would dissipate and not be noticeable within in a few hours. Maxxthor is highly repellent to any pest and so treated areas would be purged of active pests and protected for some time. When mixed with water, you will get some “subtle” penetration into the wood which would help for wood destroying pests. And the active would last several years.
Now if you wanted to protect the wood even better/longer, there is one more option to consider. That would be using the Maxxthor with BASE OIL. This will get you the most thorough penetration as we detail here:
The advantage of using it with Base Oil is that the active would move completely through the wood and act more like a permanent treatment. This happens because it will “lock” into the grain of the wood and in turn, prevent any wood eating or boring pest (along with the pests you mentioned).
Let us know if you have any questions; you can’t go wrong using any of the above listed treatments. And doing treatments before you have pests is actually the best overall strategy – especially when you have wide open access to insure complete coverage in these problematic areas.
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