woodworm treatment

I know has been a while since this thread was started, but looking for advice on likely woodworm.

Noticed 2 reasonably sized piles of wood dust on a new item of furniture and the dust was directly below some very small holes in the drawer just above the dust. I dont knkw if this is a sign that there is woodworm in the house and they took a liking for the new furniture or a sign the furniture had woodworm in it and they started making a hole to get out?

I bought 3 items of similar furniture and so far couldn't find anything on other units, I vacuumed the wood dust,the holes and removed the drawer with holes,bagged it and placed it in a cold metal shed waiting treatment, house is new to me,but haven't seen signs of this elsewhere in the last 6 months, so I really suspect the specific piece of furniture.

How can I treat the wood furniture,including the 2 other items as a precaution?

How do I check for a problem elsewhere in the house and is it possible to treat?

I've read woodworm (boring beetle) can like damp, but heating is on and house ventilated?

OP

If you know any factory with a Kiln for kiln drying timber, ask could you put the furniture in to the kiln for a short period of time. The heat in the kiln will kill the woodworms in the furniture.

Alternatively you could purchase Woodworm Traps that will attract and kill the male woodworms.

I would not introduce poisonous chemicals in to a dwellinghouse.

The Woodworm holes in timber are Exit holes, where the Woodworm Beetle 🪲 has exited from the timber. Therefore the Beetle has flown away to find new timber to lay eggs.

Filling these holes to try to eradicate the worms is the same as closing the stable door after the horse bolted.

You state in relation to poisonous Chemicals - that you don’t see any risk. This is because your lungs do not have eyes.

In a safe place in a timber so that the eggs can hatch and bore in to the timber. The female emerge from the wood in early summer and live for 2-4 weeks during which the female lays 20 to 100 eggs that hatch in 3-5 weeks. The larvae bore straight into the wood making a hole indiscernible to the naked eye.

A woodworm that traps the Male beetle and therefore reduces the amount of eggs.

If you split open a piece of construction timber that's peppered with flight holes, you will see the "galleries" created by the woodworm as it chews its way through the timber, and if you're lucky you might even see a live larva or two! The galleries intersect so there is every reason to treat all flight holes- the flight holes provide a direct route into the timber to kill any woodworm within the timber. Anyway, I'll continue to treat woodworm with "chemicals", works for me!

So how do you stop the larvae from causing damage?

A summer house we have in West Cork built in 63 is eaten alive with woodworm.

Empty 9 months in the year, the beetles have thrived. All the furniture has been burned save a few nice bits. All the mouldings and doors have gone. This year the roof is coming off. All joists, wallplates, rafters, purlins, facias and soffits are infested.

We believe the timbers already had woodworm when delivered to site.

The walls are open 50mm cavity block, solid floor(TG) with one bathroom air brick. Up until 2000 it had draughty casement windows.

Its in a very exposed coastal location so there is no lack of ventilation but in the void periods I would imagine high humidity.

Yes it seemed that the chairs,table and matching kitchen units were the favourite although any wood was affected, old furniture ,painted

architraves. blockwood panel doors and plywood soffits.

The Poisonous Chemical will only penetrate a few mm in to the timber of the furniture when injected through the exit borehole.

Some of Larvae could still be alive and continue boring through the timber away from the surface and treated sections.

So, is that a no then? ( without over-explaining it)

It is a no.

All the larvae deep in the furniture will not be killed by spraying poison in through the boreholes.

All the surface of the furniture will not absorb the chemicals sprayed in to the boreholes.

After a few years (up to 5 years) the larvae will pupate and turn in to an adult beetle and bore out of the timber.

There is no guarantee that the area of this exit hole will be affected with the chemical that was sprayed in to a boreholes.

You will know that the beetle has exited by the evidence of frass which is a beige dust.

the conservation method of killing wood worm larvae in furniture is not to place it in a kiln, which damages both the finish and the glue. but rather to wrap the piece in polyethene and then freeze the piece of furniture .

In my experience they thrived in cooler damper houses. A centrally heated house with low humidity is unlikely to have a problem with woodworm.

I have a piece of furniture which I treated with some woodworm treatment many months ago. I've just noticed that there's loads of dead what I think is the common furniture beetle. There's a few piles of dust aswell. Am I right in thinking that the beetles died on exciting holes, rinse and repeat? Is it worthwhile to treat again? I've no access to a kiln or such.