Carpenter ants
Texas's biggest ant, nesting in moisture-softened wood
- Behavior
- Excavate galleries rather than eating wood, favoring headers, sills and deck connections that moisture already softened. Coarse frass piles below kick-out points.
- What makes them tricky
- Smooth, clean galleries against the grain distinguish them from termite damage on sight, a distinction the report must make because the treatments differ completely.
- How we approach them
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- Frass piles at baseboards and sills
- Gallery texture identification
- Moisture mapping at suspect wood