FAQ
Straight answers, no scare tactics
Can’t find yours? Ring us — we’d rather answer it on the phone for free than have you guess.
Common questions
How often should a Brisbane house be inspected?
Every twelve months. That’s the Australian Standard, and in this climate it isn’t cautious — termites can cause structural damage inside a single year. If your house is on timber stumps, backs onto bushland, or has had activity before, some owners go to six-monthly.
Are termite treatments safe around kids and pets?
The products we use are applied into soil, into wall voids or inside sealed bait stations, not sprayed across living areas. For a general pest treatment we ask you to keep pets and children off treated surfaces for a couple of hours while it dries. Fish tanks get covered and we’ll tell you before we start. We carry the safety data sheets in the van if you’d like to read them.
Can I just spray the termites myself?
It’s the worst thing you can do, and we mean that literally. Off-the-shelf sprays kill the few hundred termites you can see and make the colony abandon that route and tunnel somewhere else in your house — somewhere you now can’t find. Leave them exactly as they are and call. Undisturbed activity is what lets us bait the nest.
What's the difference between a $150 inspection and yours?
Time and access. Ninety minutes to two hours, in the subfloor, in the roof space, along the fence line and around every tree, with a thermal camera and a moisture meter. A $job across Brisbane is a fifteen-minute walk around the outside. Both produce a piece of paper; only one of them has actually looked.
Do I need a barrier if I've never had termites?
Not necessarily. If your home has a current chemical or physical barrier that’s intact, or it’s a slab home with well-maintained perimeter clearance and no timber-to-soil contact, monitoring may be all you need. We’ll tell you that rather than sell you a treatment — a barrier on a house that doesn’t need one is $2,400 spent on peace of mind you already had.
Will my insurance cover termite damage?
Almost certainly not. Standard home insurance in Australia excludes termite damage because it’s considered preventable and gradual. That’s exactly why the annual inspection matters, and why the $2m timber damage warranty we offer on homes we treat and keep inspecting is worth having.
How long does a treatment take and can I stay home?
A general pest treatment is about an hour and you can be home. A full chemical barrier is most of a day — trenching, drilling paths and injecting — and you can stay, though we’ll need access all the way around. Baiting is quick to install and then we come back every few weeks to check the stations.
I'm buying a house. Isn't the building inspection enough?
A combined building and pest report is two separate inspections, and on Brisbane’s timber housing stock the pest half is where the expensive surprises live. We do a lot of work for buyers whose building inspector was thorough on the structure and glanced at the subfloor. Book both — and don’t skip the pest one because the house looks new; slab homes get termites too.