It seems like spray foam insulation is increasingly popular. Apparently, it does a great job. Of insulating.
Unfortunately, it also can cause some issues! We have had far too many cases over 2023 – 2024 where the ants were marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah! Homes or cottages under renovation, and even in the process of being built. Typical lore is that wood-destroying-insects (WDI) get in via damp wood. But guess what? They don’t bother waiting in the case of spray foam insulation!
Multiple properties, including many still under construction, have called Cottage Country Pest Control for serious carpenter ant infestations within about a week of being sprayed!! And to make it all just that much more fun, treating ants in spray foam is not so fun!
Generally, when we treat for carpenter ants, we provide bait – many flavours – for the ants to take back to the nests for the queen(s). And after the queen(s) are done, we dust into the voids, cracks and crevices they were using so that new colonies don’t move in. Or, we may spray. Can you imagine how well that works with spray foam? Yeah, about that well – as in not at all.
And of course, we can’t see through it. So, if it wasn’t for the piles of insulation coloured foam dust frass, the noise, and the eventual damage, you’d hardly know they were there. Or that there was a leak. Or an opening that would allow rodents in. They like to nest in and burrow through hardened spray foam, also.
Because of that, in some areas, insurance and mortgage companies may refuse to cover properties that use spray foam insulation because of the potential for problems to fester unseen. Most of the articles I’ve had pop up in my feeds are from the UK, not Canada – but as this article from Remax discusses, there are considerations around it’s use.
Which is not to say you shouldn’t use it! But if you are going to do so, I highly recommend taking precautions, such as:
Have a thorough inspection of the area(s) to be covered prior to treatment, and fix any potential issues such as cracks, openings, etc.
Protect the wood before you cover it. Bora-Care is an effective spray on product that soaks into untreated wood. It prevents infestations from any WDI – ants, termites, or wood boring beetles – and the protection reportedly lasts years; decades, even.
It is ever so much easier – and cheaper – to prevent problems than it is to solve them.
Cottage Country Pest Control can do all of the pretreatment protection you need so that you can relax and enjoy your nice warm home or cottage.
