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Knowledge base

This is where the species pages live: how to tell which termite you are looking at, what it does to a house and how fast, and what that changes about treatment. Almost every treatment decision follows from which termite you have, which is why identification comes before anything else.

The species

  • subterranean

    Subterranean termite

    The termites behind the mud tubes on a foundation wall. They nest in soil, reach the wood from below, live in nearly every state, and work slowly.

  • drywood

    Drywood termite

    The termites that leave little piles of hard six-sided pellets. They live entirely inside dry wood, need no soil contact, and build up slowly over years.

  • formosan

    Formosan subterranean termite

    A subterranean termite with colonies in the millions and long-range foraging. That size is why spot-treating where you found them so often fails.

Identification guides

  • Termite Mud Tubes: What They Are and What to Do

    A termite mud tube, or shelter tube, is a covered runway of hardened earth that subterranean termites build so they can travel between the soil they live in and the wood they are eating.

    5 min read

  • Signs of Termites: What Each One Tells You

    A sign of termites is a physical trace the insects left behind, not the insects themselves. Every sign below is worth acting on, and the two you are most likely to find, a mud tube and a pile of…

    7 min read

  • Termite Droppings vs Sawdust: Reading the Pile

    A small pile of wood debris on your floor is almost never sawdust. It is insect droppings, excavation waste, or beetle powder, and of the four things that leave a pile like that, drywood termite…

    8 min read

  • Termite vs Carpenter Ant Damage: Reading the Wood

    Opening a wall during a remodel or pulling back trim often reveals damaged timber with no insect anywhere in it. What sits inside the galleries names the insect, and how smooth the walls are does not…

    7 min read

  • Carpenter Ants vs. Termites: Telling Them Apart

    Termites are insects that eat wood for the cellulose in it; carpenter ants are large ants that do not eat wood at all, but tunnel into it to make a nest and dump the shavings back out.

    6 min read