Wednesday 19 November 2014

Termites and Your Building

Termites are social insects so called because of their highly organised lifestyle. They start their lifestyle under the ground and continue to build their ant hill using the soil obtained from below the earth surface. Termites ant hill can be as high as 3m the hieght of a bungalow building. The impact of their activity on the building is the when their ant hill is very close to the building. This implies that the soil used in constructing the ant hill is withdrawn from the underlying subsoil supporting the foundation. This effect can eventually lead to collapse of the foundation structure under the effect of differential settlement. This can have subsequent effect of wall cracking and structural instability and aesthetic distortion of building.
Solution
If the building is to be left for a long period before the completion, it is advisable that the anthill or mound development be disallowed.
It should be dimolished if already in construction and pesticide such as soligum be applied to kill the termites

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