Urgent: Termites?

[network_engineer]

Hi all,

We stored some firewood inside the house, about 1 cubic, and today while vacuuming and cleaning noticed some fine powder-ish substance around the place, the powdery stuff mostly in the pine logs. Then I noticed that some of them had fine holes in the log itself.

Could this be a sign of termites? Do we have termites in Finland? Considering our house is made of wood, this might need immediate action? Any advice?

Thanks.

Kind regards.

[Upphew]

Hi all,

We stored some firewood inside the house, about 1 cubic, and today while vacuuming and cleaning noticed some fine powder-ish substance around the place, the powdery stuff mostly in the pine logs. Then I noticed that some of them had fine holes in the log itself.

Could this be a sign of termites? Do we have termites in Finland? Considering our house is made of wood, this might need immediate action? Any advice?

Never heard termites in Finland.

http://www.uku.fi/~holopain/stt/sttkok.htm#puu
http://www.metla.fi/metinfo/metsienterv ... mrdemo.htm

[Rosamunda]

The northern limit of termites in Europe is SW France (also Italy, Spain etc).
They cannot survive Finnish winters. In fact they "freeze" them out of the woodwork in infested buildings in France.

[Tiwaz]

Hi all,

We stored some firewood inside the house, about 1 cubic, and today while vacuuming and cleaning noticed some fine powder-ish substance around the place, the powdery stuff mostly in the pine logs. Then I noticed that some of them had fine holes in the log itself.

Could this be a sign of termites? Do we have termites in Finland? Considering our house is made of wood, this might need immediate action? Any advice?

Thanks.

Kind regards.

Closest thing we have for termites are ants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_ant (Herculeanus for Finland)
They are not serious problem though, as they only make their homes in the wood. Various beetles like mentioned.

One thing to notice about storing wood is that you should not keep large amounts of it indoors.
First, there are fungi and molds living in wood which might be bad for your health.
Second, it is illegal to store large amounts of burning material indoors in areas which are not sectioned out from rest of the house. (needs to have certain level of fire resistance on the walls).

Neither can you keep them piled against the wall by law. Basically how you should store your firewood is in a separate building (or whatever, some light frame with roof is enough) which must be at least 8 meters from other buildings (or have wall with appropriate fire grade towards the house) and at least 4 meters from border of the plot... And all kinds of crap.

Honestly, I have hard time understanding what the hell is the point really, as wood is not known to be easily combustible nor have there been record of spontaneous combustion... Of course if someone sets fire on the pile of firewood it would be bad, but with wooden house...

Well, anyway. Sweep, keep an eye out for bugs (odds are they are not going to be an issue as most insects live inside wood as maggots as part of their life cycle and when leaving it they do not burrow into new one, but may produce offspring into one)

[Pursuivant]

If they were carpenter ants (which are bigass mofos) you'd know... its more likely either tupajumi or kuolinkello
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupajumi
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuolemankello (logically - if you start hearing ticking sound at night, the devil is surely after you with a stopwatch)

[mrjimsfc]

if you start hearing ticking sound at night, the devil is surely after you with a stopwatch)

Or else the crocodile from Peter Pan.