Termite season in Georgetown: the signs that show up before the damage does

With over forty years serving Georgetown and Williamson County, King's knows plenty about termites in this area. Local knowledge matters more with termites than with almost any other pest, because soil type, slab construction, irrigation habits and the era a neighbourhood was built in all change where the pressure comes from and how it gets in.

The difficult thing about termites is the timeline. Most of the signals homeowners recognise are late ones. By the time something is visibly wrong, the colony has usually been working for a while.

The signals people already know, and why they are late

• Mud tubes running up a foundation wall or pier, which means an active route is already established
• A skirting board, window frame or door frame that feels soft or sounds hollow when tapped
• Paint that looks blistered or rippled over a flat surface
• A spring swarm of winged insects, which means the colony is mature enough to reproduce
• Small piles of discarded wings near windows or light fittings after a swarm

None of those are reasons to panic, and all of them are reasons to call rather than watch. A swarm in particular is frequently misread as a one off nuisance. A swarm is a colony announcing it has been established long enough to produce reproductives.

The earlier signals

Earlier signals are duller and easier to dismiss. Conditions rather than events.

• Soil or mulch banked up against the slab, bridging the gap termites would otherwise have to cross in the open
• Irrigation that keeps one side of the foundation permanently damp
• Timber in contact with soil anywhere near the building, including fence posts, deck supports and landscape timbers
• Stored firewood or lumber against an exterior wall
• A leak under a bathroom or kitchen that has been ignored because it is slow

Those are the things that turn a normal level of termite pressure into a problem at your address specifically. Several of them are free to fix and worth an afternoon.

Monitoring turns an emergency into a maintenance item

Alongside treatment, King's offers preventative treatments and monitoring stations. Monitoring is the part worth understanding, because it changes the nature of the problem rather than just responding to it.

A station that shows activity gives you months of warning. Without monitoring, the warning you get is a soft skirting board, and by then the conversation is about repair as well as treatment. That is the whole argument for monitoring on a property in an area with real termite pressure.

Treatment is not always all or nothing

King's provides full or partial treatments to remove termite infestations, depending on what is actually happening. A partial treatment is the honest answer when activity is confined to one area, and a full treatment is the honest answer when it is not. Same day service is available, and the office will tell you plainly whether your situation warrants it.

If you are building

Pre-construction is the cheapest termite work that exists. If you are putting up a new residential or commercial property, a pre-construction termite treatment plan protects the building before there is a building to protect. King's uses the latest products from Termidor for pretreatments on residential and commercial construction sites, and provides real estate inspections and certificates for its termite services.

King's works with many builders and contractors throughout Williamson County and fits around construction timelines with quick response times and flexible scheduling. On a build programme that is usually the deciding factor, because a pretreatment that misses its window holds up the pour.

What to do now

Walk the outside of your house once and look at where the wall meets the ground. Check for banked soil, damp patches, timber touching dirt and anything stacked against the wall. If you find mud tubes, or anything that looks like them, call the Georgetown office on (512) 930-7378 and describe what you are seeing rather than trying to remove it first.

King's has been the trusted name in termite prevention and extermination here since 1982, and the conversation costs nothing.