Carpenter ants don’t eat structural wood, but they do damage it. They chew out galleries within damp wood so they can live inside.
A lot of people say carpenter ants eat wood. That’s not exactly right, but the real answer is not comforting either. Termites eat wood. Carpenter ants merely carve out galleries within wood so they can live in it. Either way, they can cause some serious damage to your home.
Termites actually eat wood. They digest cellulose and live off of it. Carpenter ants excavate it. You can tell the difference because their galleries are smooth and clean and look like they’ve almost been sanded down. The ants push the shavings outside through slit openings rather than leaving them inside. That’s why your best early warning sign is those small piles of fibrous sawdust.
You can often find evidence of carpenter ants’ handiwork under windowsills and along basement beams. Sometimes you’ll see them under porch posts or at the base of a door frame. If you see the ants themselves, they will be large and black and often indoors in the winter when outdoor colonies should be dormant. If they’re inside your walls, you might hear a faint and dry rustling, particularly at night.
If you have carpenter ants, you probably have a moisture issue inside somewhere. Sound, dry framing resists carpenter ants. But if wood has been softened by a leak in the roof or a sweating pipe, then it’s a different story. So if you are finding carpenter ants in your Princeton home, you probably have two problems: ants, and the water that made it possible for ants to start carving their homes inside yours.
You don’t want to let this go on for long. You will want to locate the main colony and any satellite nests and then treat them. You also will want to correct the source of the moisture problem, which might be a job for a plumber or roofer. And you also want to make it harder for ants to get inside, which you can do by moving firewood off the ground and away from walls and by pulling mulch away from the foundation.
If large ants and sawdust have shown up in your house, Mosquito Squad of Princeton can help. Mosquito Squad treats the ant colonies outside your home and the entry points they use. This will help you protect the wood your house depends on.
