Termites are primarily known to devour timber and wood in the outside of a home. However, these destructive insects can also be quite a nuisance to your wood furniture in the interior of your property, if not adequately controlled. Once they infest your home, termites can cause damage to any wooden furniture they come across, including chairs, tables, bookcases, and antiques.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to notice these termites when they begin to infest your home. So how do termites get to your furniture, and how do you get rid of them? This guide explains how you can deal with termites in your furniture.

Types of Termites to Watch

There are 2 primary types of termites that attack furniture. These include the subterranean termites and dry wood termites.

Subterranean Termites

These termites are popularly found in the walls of a property or in beneath wooden foundations. Subterranean termites thrive well in moist environments, and they are considered to be the most destructive termites. These termites rarely attack furniture due to their need for moist environments. However, furniture placed in the exterior of a house or around damp conditions is a target to subterranean termites.

Drywood Termites

These termites thrive well in warm conditions, and they can be found around any wooden structure, including woodwork, wooden frames, and furniture. Drywood termites can gain access to your home, especially when swarming, giving them to infest your furniture. These termites are hard to identify, which is why you should be aware of the signs to look out for.

Signs of Termites in Furniture

When it comes to pest control, it is fundamental that you identify their breeding or thriving points. The following are signs of a termite infestation in your house furniture;

1. Mud Tubes

This is one of the primary signs of subterranean termite infestation. These mud tunnels can be traced on the bottom edges of the house where the wall meets the floor. You can also trace them on walls or beneath furniture, especially the outdoor furniture.

2. Faecal Pellets

If you notice faecal pellets beneath or around your furniture, it is an indication that your furniture is at risk of a termite infestation. The faecal pellets are wood-coloured, and can easily be traced in piles.

3. Cracks and Crevices

Unexplained crevices or cracks on the furniture finishes are also a sign of a termite infestation.

4. Shed Wings

When termites infest your house, you might notice wings shed by termite swarmer around the windowsills or on the floor.

How Would the Termites Get in Your House?

Sometimes it is difficult to comprehend how termites got into your house. You will be surprised to discover the multiple ways through which termites find their way into your property.

• Movement in Purchase

Sometimes furniture is not the only thing you get when you buy some pieces of furniture, especially second-hand purchases. The termites might have come along with the purchased furniture.

• Transfer by Contact

If your furniture comes into contact with other infested furniture, then termites might have moved from there.

• Damp Environment

If you are still using furniture that was rained on or soaked in a snowfall, then that could have attracted subterranean termites to your house.

How to Get Rid of Termites

It is advisable to always seek help from a professional pest control service provider, such as Excel Pest Services to get rid of termites. But in case the termite infestation is less severe, you can apply the following tips to get rid of these destructive pests.

1. Expose Your Furniture to Sunlight

Regular exposure of your furniture to sunlight is one of the best ways of getting rid of subterranean termites. This method prevents further termite infestation by reducing the moisture content around furniture.

2. Chemical Treatment

You can also use various chemical treatment methods to kill termites. One of the most popular termite killers is borax powder. The good thing with borax is that it is non-toxic, and it facilitates an immediate eradication of termites when applied severally.

3. Go for Parasitic Nematodes

Nematodes are tiny worms that feed on termites by burrowing into them. This method is safe and quick in getting rid of termites.

4. Oil Treatments

Various oil types, such as neem and orange oils are also effective in getting rid of a termite infestation. You can either spray or pour these oils on the affected parts of the furniture for better results.

Keep Reading: 

• Things to be Considered While Renovating a Property
• 7 Reasons Why You Should Perform a Termite/Pest Inspection Before Moving In
• Sure Shot Ways to Treat Termites
• Why You Should Take Building Inspections More Seriously

The estimated cost of annual home repairs can reach up to $5,000 but may depend on the level of improvements. This comes with a variety of maintenance tasks that include electrical, plumbing, repairs, and the cost of labor. After all, making yearly improvements to the home will add value to the property in the long term.

But without proper care, bigger problems may crop up without warning. Here’s how you can create a home maintenance checklist for your annual upkeep.

Start With Routine Observations

Observing isn’t just determining whether you have a simple home issue or are in need of serious remodeling. Look for texture and color changes on walls and pipes. Inspect the walls and floors for smells, cracks, water, termites, etc. Once you know how to observe potential damage in the home, you can begin making smarter choices in maintenance and develop a solid checklist for your annual routine. If your home is prone to floods or tornadoes, make sure to get the proper protection you need in the event of the next potential disaster.

Assess Plumbing For Water Damage

According to Sarkinen Restoration, leaking or broken pipes that cause water damage to the property can be costly if left untreated. Experts recommend that the home plumbing system should be checked once every two years, especially if you live in an outdated home or have old trees on the property. This way, it will be easier to prevent any major repairs and fix any leaking issues before they get worse.

Change Home Filters

Changing home filters regularly will ensure that they will run smoothly and efficiently. But how often should you change your air filters? Suburban homes without pets should replace filters every 90 days, while those with animals should change their filter every 2 months.

As for air conditioners, prioritize a monthly general cleaning. After all, clogged air filters can damage your AC system, resulting in costly repairs and even permanent damage.

Thoroughly Clean Appliances 

One common part of the home maintenance checklist that is often neglected is giving appliances a regular deep clean. Large levels of gunk, dirt, and debris that accumulate in these appliances may reduce their long-term efficiency. The refrigerator should be given a thorough cleaning every three months.

To make this task easier, clean any spills as soon as they happen, and dispose of any food that has already spoiled. The dishwasher must be cleaned every month with a combination of baking soda and vinegar to help remove any odor and grease buildup.

Check Roof Maintenance  

Homeowners seldom pay attention to their roofing until there are signs of leaks. However, experts recommend that the roof should be inspected between September to January. If a major weather disaster occurred, it is also a good time to inspect the home and ensure that everything is in top condition. Even the smallest damage should be immediately repaired to prevent the problem from getting worse.

Most homeowners find satisfaction in taking care of their home. After all, it is a way of growing and preserving their investment while building a comfortable place to live. With this checklist, you can stay on task and maintain your home’s annual upkeep.

To get more information:–

• Home Maintenance Tips that Cost Literally Nothing in a Rented Flat in Noida
• 8 Annual Home Maintenance Practises to Never Skip

Building a new home is an exciting journey to embark upon. However, it can also be an extremely stressful one if you don’t plan. To help you make your home-building project a success, here are a few tips to end up with a home you’ll love for years to come.

Budget Carefully

Firstly, budgeting is a huge part of building a home. When you buy an existing property, the budgeting pressure is lifted slightly because you have a total figure you want to spend, and that’s it. When you build a new home, the costs aren’t always as clear, and under-budgeting can result in a lot of heartaches.

When getting estimates from your builders, ask that everything is included. Often, the prices provided are for all the basics. If you want more upmarket inclusions such as whitegoods, blinds and even smaller things like door handles, you want to know the full cost. Don’t forget landscaping too, as this can often be an expense people forget to budget for.

Lot Placement Matters

Where your home sits on your lot is important for a number of reasons. Most importantly, you want your home facing the right way to maximise the light and warmth from the sun. As a general rule, having your main living areas facing north is a good way to go. This gives you the most daylight sun streaming through the windows, so you can save on heating and lighting.

You’ll also want to consider how close you want to be to the neighbours, whether you prefer having a large front or back yard, and ensuring you’ve got the best access possible to your home.

Choose a Floor Plan for Your Lifestyle

Lifestyle is a big thing to consider when building a home, particularly in designing the floor plan. It’s also one of the most difficult processes because, as we know, lifestyles change. If you’re a young, single couple who likes entertaining, your idea of the perfect home layout may be very different from a family with two or three children. The issue is, you may be the single couple now, but in years to come, you could be the family.

Many people prefer open plan living, but you need to ensure it’s practical for what the future holds too. If you want children to have their rooms, consider where you want them to be in relation to living areas where the most noise occurs. 

Insulation

Insulation can so easily be forgotten in the home building process, but it’s one of those things you need to get right from the word go. While it’s not so difficult to add ceiling insulation down the track, choosing the right floor insulation is best done while building. It’s difficult to rip out walls and pull up the floor to add insulation at a later date.

Insulation helps maintain the comfort levels of your home, all while saving money on heating and cooling costs. When installed well, it also offers great sound absorption. It’s an investment that will pay off every single day, so make sure you get the best products while you’re building.

Sustainable Materials

Finally, always consider sustainable materials. As we know, homes are built from a mixture of timber and steel, but there are plenty of smaller parts of a home that you can obtain sustainably. Certain types of roofing are made from fully recycled materials, for example. You can also consider solar energy, solar hot water systems, water management, and even eco-friendly light globes.

Conclusion

Building your home can either be a trial or a great joy. With the right sort of planning, you can make sure you end up with a beautiful, comfortable home without the hassles that many people, unfortunately, go through while building.

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Rain or shine, snowstorms or heat waves, you want to be comfortable in your home no matter what the weather looks like outside. Our society has constructed several ways of ensuring thermal comfort – we do so primarily through the use of HVAC units like AC and furnaces. In recent years, however, there’s been a sea change in how we approach thermal comfort.

This sea change has largely been brought about due to concerns relating to climate change. Furnaces and air conditioning systems require large energy investments over time, which means the burning of more fossil fuels (directly or indirectly). Though these systems have become more energy-efficient over time (and new systems like heat pumps are becoming more popular), there’s a better way to increase your home’s energy efficiency – use insulation.

Insulate Everywhere

Insulation works to your advantage in the winter and summer. To understand this, it’s important to know a little bit about heat transfer. In brief, heat transfer means that heat is always moving towards cold. That means in the summer, heat is always trying to get into your home, while in the winter, heat is always trying to escape your home. Insulation acts as a thermal barrier – it prevents heat transfer in either direction.

Your home (and all other buildings) are surrounded by what’s known as a building envelope. This envelope is what separates the conditioned area inside your home from the unconditioned area outside. Sometimes the markers of a building envelope are pretty distinct – your exterior walls are a good example of this. Other times, the markers can be a bit more indistinct – your attic may be a part of the building envelope (if it’s unconditioned) or not (if it’s conditioned).

When evaluating how well-insulated a home is, look at the building envelope. Are there any weak points where a thermal transfer can happen more easily? If there are, the entire building envelope becomes substantially less effective, as drastic amounts of heat transfer will happen at those weak points.

The best way to evaluate where you should insulate in your home is to get an energy audit. Though you can perform this yourself, a professional audit will often better enable you to learn about all the places in your home where heat transfer is occurring. Keep in mind that windows and doors are an important part of your building envelope – weather strip and caulk where appropriate, and consider getting new doors and windows.

The most important place to insulate is your attic. Heat rises, so the attic is just about the worst place for a weak point in your building envelope – especially when things get cold. You’ll also want to insulate your walls, as well as any floors near the unconditioned environment.

Howell Mechanical, an HVAC and mechanical company, has some non-building envelope-related insulation advice: insulate your hot water pipes, too! When these pipes are insulated, you reduce hot water heat loss. That means you’ll need less energy to heat water. Good for the environment, good for your wallet.

A Closer Look at Insulation

Now that you know you should be insulating almost everywhere, it will be useful to take a closer look at how you’re insulating these spaces. There’s an interesting housing standard you might want to look into Passive House. We won’t go too into depth about their standards here, but the goal is to create a home that needs minimal heating and cooling by creating a hyper-insulated environment.

Passive House standards accomplish this by insulating the home so thoroughly that there’s almost no air transfer – you need a ventilator to keep the air sufficiently fresh in a Passive House. This goes well beyond insulation standards in building construction, but doing so can conserve a lot of energy.

To know how insulating a particular material is, it’s a good idea to look at its R-value; the higher the R-value, the more insulating the material. It’s also important to understand that doubling the thickness of a material doubles the R-value of the insulation. You can purchase high R-value materials with reflective surfaces and tightly woven air pockets, or you can achieve the same R-value by buying a lot of hay (note: using tons of hay as an insulant is not recommended).

One of the biggest problems with high-quality insulation around your house is that it can reduce how easily walls can breathe. This can leave moisture trapped between the insulation and walls, and it can make it difficult for moisture to leave your home. There are several solutions to this problem, from hybrid walls to the aforementioned ventilators. When insulating your home, keep moisture and air circulation in mind, especially if you’re going past the recommended levels of insulation in your area.

Conclusion

On that note, it’s important to recognize that homes in milder climates will need less insulation than climates with drastic temperature changes. There’s no one-size-fits-all standard for insulation – as long as you’re insulating your whole building envelope, you’re on the right track. Talk with professionals and check standards in your area to know how much insulation you need!

Learn more:

• Insulated Garden Buildings Ideas Like Never Before
• Insulated Garden Office: All You Need to Know

Burglars like using windows as a point of entry to homes. Every few seconds, a burglar is trying to force their way into a home. As a homeowner, you must enhance the security of your property and one way to do so is to improve your window security. Below we give you various options on how you can do this.

Install Window Locks

Window locks are effective in enhancing home security. Burglars are always in a hurry to steal and locks give them a hard time. Although windows come with a latch, this is not enough and that is the reason you should purchase add-on locks.

Make sure they are of high quality. Ask your local locksmith for suitable window locks to suit your windows. They will also ensure they are installed properly. Then you must remember to lock them when not open.

Install Security Bars or Grills

If you cannot get window locks, you can opt for security grills or bars. Make sure that they can be securely attached and are effective. One thing to keep in mind is that they must be easy to release from the inside. This will help you escape from your home in case of fire or another emergency.

Upgrade Windows

Upgrading windows enhances home security significantly. As you choose the windows, consider high-quality ones that are hard to break, are more energy-efficient, and ones that include quality locks. Old and worn-out windows are easy to tamper with.

Add Window Security Pins

Just because your windows are old, it does not mean you cannot enhance home security through them. As long as they have a window frame, you can boost security. You should add window security pins on double-hung windows to keep them secure.

As you plan to improve your window security, there are a couple of things to remember. The options that you have will depend on the type of window and the level of security you are looking at. For example, with window locks, some work for a specific type of window and cannot work for others. Thus, you should work with a security specialist for professional advice.

Weak windows are an easy target for burglars who are always looking for an opportunity to grab something from your house. Some burglaries are never planned and they are done by opportunists. Thus, you should improve your window security as part and parcel of your home security.

Upgrade worn-out windows, install add-on locks, and use security bars. It also helps to work with a window specialist to see how best you can enhance security.

Continue reading:-

• How to Install Burglar Alarm Yourself? Step By Step Guidance
• Window Grill Design Ideas: A Guide to Choose the Right One
• Gas or Charcoal Grill? Your Choice Depends on What You Intend to Grill
• 7+ Best Grill Design for Balcony That Are Perfect for Any Home
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Need somewhere to store your valuables? Try to rent a self storage unit from a provider of Auckland storage units close to you. This storage unit provides you with the space you need to store your belongings. Storage units offer a remedy before, during, and after a transfer for those who need temporary or long-term storage. 

You want to make sure the storage unit is packed, prepared, and organized so that you don’t lose track of what you have. What good is a storage unit if you can’t find something that you need when you need it? 

If you’re not sure how to put together a storage unit, these helpful tips will help you better manage the space within your unit while making your overall storage experience more efficient. 

Make an Inventory List

It is difficult to recall all the items when storing many items in a storage unit. While large pieces of furniture, such as a bed or a couch, are easy to recall, smaller items are often forgotten in storage after months or years. 

You’ll need to develop and maintain a list of every item you store inside the unit to keep it all straight. You can write each item in a spreadsheet as you start packing. It is also a good way to keep up with what’s in your self-storage unit by taking photos of packed objects. 

Make sure to save all images and details of inventories in one folder. It’s also a good idea to make some kind of map which indicates where your valuables are inside the unit.

Select One Size for Every Box

Boxes of the same size help with the packing and usability. The small or medium boxes in storage will be suitable for most of your possessions. Keep in mind that large boxes are good for things that aren’t very heavy, but they may not hold well at the bottom of big stacks. Large boxes are more difficult to remove when you need something out of them.

Use Clear Bins 

In a storage unit, cardboard boxes are completely fine to use. Also, they tend to be cheaper than plastic bins. Plastic bins also make it much easier to keep track of what is inside your storage unit. In our opinion, the extra few bucks are often worth the effort. Clear plastic bins allow you to see what’s contained in a container without having to ransack it. This will help speed up the process when trying to locate what you need when you need it.

Know the Items You May Access Frequently

Things you don’t use regularly may be needed later when you’re packing. Consider carefully what you would need while your things are in storage, and give seasonal items extra thought.

Disassemble Furniture

To maximise space, disassemble large furniture pieces before putting them in storage, and make sure to arrange them more effectively. It includes removing coffee tables, bed frames, and beds; you should think about disassembling table legs as well as other things. 

We suggest that individual items be placed in an upright position toward the rear of a storage facility (except for mattresses that should be lying flat). You’ll create more floor space for other things by holding furniture upright and on the foot. If your dining room table does not fall down, consider using it as additional shelving for stacked boxes inside the storage unit.

Label Every Box

Mark each box at the minimum on one side with a specific box number, the room from which it came, and the box material. Place a special label on boxes that you might need to access during storage at some point; remember to place these items last in your storage unit. Be as detailed with the contents as possible.

Pack Vertically

When packing your storage unit and organising it, try to go vertically with your stuff. Boxes should be stacked high, and furniture should be kept erect. If you happen to be storing bookcases or something with shelving, use the extra storage space whenever possible. You can add hanging shelves or wire shelving or to the storage facility to make room for smaller boxes and belongings. If the storage unit is quite high, you might want to try using a step stool or foldable ladder inside the unit.

Don’t forget the following things when renting a storage unit: 

• Know what you can and can’t store in the unit. 
• Rent a storage unit of the correct size for your needs. 
• Use deliveries for quality packaging. 
• Clean the unit and your things thoroughly before placing them inside.

Find out more:-

• 4 Tips for Effective Warehouse Inventory Management
• 7 Tips for the Perfect DIY Move
• Tips on How to Save Money When Moving House
• 5 Ways to Increase Storage in Your Kitchen