Identify
Signs of termite damage in wood
Termite-damaged wood is hollowed along the grain, often lined with dried mud, while the painted face still looks intact. Tap it and it sounds empty. Probe a porch post or a sill, not a load-bearing wall.
Carpenter ants leave smooth, clean tunnels and a pile of coarse shavings. They do not eat the wood.
Key takeaways
- The surface can look painted while the inside is mined along the grain.
- Subterranean galleries often have dried mud or soil in them.
- Carpenter ants dump coarse sawdust and keep the tunnels smooth, with no soil.
- Drywood damage shows kick-out pellets, not mud.
- Old dry damage still needs a licensed look. Feeding may have moved.
Kentucky: termites hollow wood along the grain and line the feeding galleries with bits of dried mud. Moisture rot and carpenter ants do not look like that. The outer skin of a board often stays in place, which is why people walk past it for years.
Follow the grain
Tap a sill plate, a porch post, a window casing. Then probe gently with a screwdriver in a scrap of trim, not in a beam you need. Soft, layered wood that peels with the grain is the feeding pattern. Tight doors and a sagging porch can have other causes. Pair them with mud in the wood or a tube on the adjacent concrete.
| Termites | Carpenter ants | Rot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inside the wood | Rough galleries along the grain | Smooth, clean tunnels | Stringy, wet or crumbly |
| Debris | Mud in galleries, or drywood pellets | Coarse shavings dumped outside | No insect dump |
| Surface | Often intact paint or veneer | Kick-out of sawdust | Soft all the way through |
Penn State: carpenter ants excavate. They do not eat wood as food. They push out stringy particles mixed with insect parts. Their galleries stay smooth and free of soil.
Drywood feeding leaves six-sided pellets under a pin-hole, not mud. Powderpost beetles leave flour-fine dust and tiny round exit holes.
Do not demo for a look
Photograph first. Patching paint or filling a probe hole hides the timeline an inspector and an adjuster use. Wood replacement and a termite treatment are often separate bids. Ask which is which.
Mississippi State: mud in old galleries can be leftover from a colony that was treated years ago. Dry, empty damage still gets a licensed inspection. You cannot date activity from a blog photo.
Log the member and a photo in the sighting log. Size a termite job in the estimator and read termite treatment cost. Contact for a referral path. Typical US ranges, not a bid. This is not an engineer report.