When we first noticed the termites it looked like a dark crack in the paint of the trim. Then the crack started to cave in. At this point we actually could hear them chewing away at our house!Because our building was constructed as a pole barn the termites had free access to the wood in the house. Normally on a slap construction you would see mud tunnels up the side of the walls.
We thought that if the wood was up higher than 18" that the termites would not be a problem.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE DETERMINATION OF A TERMITE TO GET TO THE WOOD THEY WANT TO EAT.
We now take termites very seriously and have applied "TERMADOR" around the perimeters of our buildings. We tried nematodes for termites , which did not work in this situation . We also tried orange oil, it seemed to work at first but the termites returned after 2 weeks. Then I found "Termador" on http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com
It really works! I filled a hypodermic needle with the mixed solution and inserted it into the cavity of the eaten wood and treated the perimeter as well.
When I started to replace the rotted wood with solid good wood , I did not know how extensive the damage was. I took an ice pick to test how deep the soft wood was. Luckily the termites only ate some of the trim around the window.
We dug out the destroyed wood layer by layer down to the good wood , cutting the trim where the termites ended and the good wood began that was not a straight cut.
Some of the plaster broke off getting the new trim in but the 2" by 2" cut to length worked perfect.
After the new trim was in place we used wood putty to replace the missing plaster.
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