Treatment and monitoring for subterranean termites in Gaithersburg houses, townhouses and additions across Montgomery County.
Fastest: call (855) 974-4733. Or send this and we call you back.
Termite control treats a colony living in the soil around and under a building, not just the insects you can see. In Maryland that means subterranean termites reached through the soil and the foundation. Gaithersburg Pest Control arranges inspection and treatment across Montgomery County, with the plan and the price confirmed before application.
The eastern subterranean termite is the species reported for Maryland in an older report quoting state agriculture officials, and it is the one local work is built around. It lives in the soil, not in your furniture, and it reaches wood by travelling through the ground and up through whatever touches it: a footing, a slab edge, a porch pier, a deck post, a stack of firewood against the siding.
Swarmers are the reason most people call. The University of Maryland Extension describes a swarm as a sign of a mature colony nearby, and notes that swarmers which get indoors die of dehydration. That is the useful part: a pile of dead winged insects or shed wings on a basement sill is not the damage, it is the announcement. The swarm window is spring, roughly after warm rain.
Treatment is a soil-and-structure job. The technician reads the building first: where the grade sits against the siding, whether the slab has been poured against wood, which wall the soil touches, where the plumbing comes through and whether a crawl space can be entered. Then the plan follows the building rather than a standard script.
Do not break open mud tubes, drill into damaged wood or spray a termite tube with a household product before an inspection, because it scatters the evidence and can move the colony somewhere harder to find. Treat sagging floors, soft joist ends and a spongy sill plate as a structural question and keep weight off them. Never treat soil near a well head, a stream or a storm drain yourself. Call (855) 974-4733 and leave the tubes exactly as they are.
Winged ants and termite swarmers get mixed up constantly, and the answer changes the job entirely. The technician checks the insect itself, the wings and the location before anything is quoted.
Where does soil touch wood? Where does the slab meet the frame? Which porch, step, stoop or deck is attached? Where do the water and sewer lines pass through? Termites use those routes, and a treatment that misses one of them leaves a door open.
Depending on the building, that can mean treating the soil around and under the foundation, treating accessible structural wood, or installing a monitored bait system around the perimeter. The technician explains which approach suits your construction and why.
Grade piled against siding, firewood stacked on the ground, buried form boards, old tree stumps, a leaking hose bib and a downspout that empties beside the footing all help a colony. Removing those is part of the treatment, not an optional extra.
Subterranean termite work is judged over seasons, not days. Re-checks look at the original activity, at any monitors and at the spots the first inspection flagged as weak points.
Spring is the window. An older report quoting state agriculture officials put swarming roughly from March to June after warm rain, which matches what people report locally. A swarm indoors means a mature colony close by, and the University of Maryland Extension notes swarmers that get inside die of dehydration.
So a vacuumed-up pile of winged insects is not the problem solved. The colony that produced them is still in the soil, and the useful response is an inspection rather than a clean-up. Keep a few of the insects or a clear photograph, because identification is the first thing anyone will ask about.
Swarmers also tell you something about where. They come out near the colony, so a swarm at a basement window, a garage slab edge or the bottom of a stairwell narrows the search. Our guide to termite signs in Montgomery County goes through what each sign means.
Through the soil and then through any contact point with wood. Slab edges and expansion joints, footings, porch and stoop piers, deck posts, plumbing and conduit penetrations, and siding or trim carried down to the ground are the usual routes. Mulch and soil piled against a wall shortens the trip.
Construction type matters more than age. A slab-on-grade house hides the critical joint under the finished floor, so the first visible sign is often at a wall base or a garage edge. A house over a crawl space gives a technician somewhere to look, which is an advantage when it can actually be entered.
Townhouse rows add a wrinkle. A colony working along a shared footing is not confined to one address, and work that stops at a property line can leave the neighbouring wall untreated. Where that applies, say so early, because coordinating with the next-door owner or the association is easier before the trenching than after.
Not meaningfully. Retail products reach the insects you can see, and the colony is in the soil where you cannot. Spot-spraying a mud tube removes the evidence a technician needed and leaves the rest of the colony working. Worse, it can turn a located problem into an unlocated one.
What a homeowner can genuinely do is remove the conditions. Pull mulch and soil back from the siding so the foundation is visible, move firewood off the ground and away from the wall, fix the gutter that soaks one corner, and clear the buried form boards and stumps that builders sometimes leave in fill.
If you have already sprayed something, say so on the call. It changes what the technician expects to find and stops a wasted visit.
The size of the perimeter, the construction type, how much of the foundation can be reached, the amount of concrete or hardscape in the way, the extent of existing activity, and whether the plan is a soil treatment, a bait system or both. No figures are published here; the price is confirmed before application.
Access is usually the biggest variable. A house with open soil around most of its perimeter is straightforward. A house wrapped in patios, a driveway against the garage wall and a built-up planting bed takes much longer, and some of that work has to be done through drilled holes rather than a trench.
Existing damage is a separate question from treatment. Control stops the colony; repairs to a sill plate, a joist end or trim are carpentry, and nobody should bundle the two into one vague figure. Ask for them to be described separately.
No. Soil treatments and bait systems both work on a maintained basis, and the soil around a building keeps changing as landscaping, drainage and additions change. The honest framing is ongoing protection with scheduled checks, not a one-time cure, and any claim stronger than that deserves scepticism.
Things that quietly undo a treatment: a new patio poured against the house, a planting bed built up over the treated zone, a deck added onto the siding, a trench dug for a utility line, and years of mulch top-ups raising the grade. Mention any of those when you book a re-check.
If you are buying or selling, the written inspection is a separate piece of work with its own form. The termite and wood-destroying insect inspection page explains what that report covers, and new construction is handled on the pre-construction termite treatment page.
The traditional approach: a treated zone in the soil the termites would have to cross. It suits houses where the perimeter can be reached and trenched, and it is affected by porches, stoops, patios and driveways poured hard against the house.
Stations set in the soil around the building, checked on a schedule, so a colony takes bait back underground. It suits buildings where trenching is awkward, and it gives you an ongoing read on pressure rather than a single event. It depends on the checks actually happening.
Where activity is confined to a known area, such as a sill plate behind a damp wall or a porch pier, the work can be focused there alongside the perimeter. It is a complement to the soil work, not a substitute for it.
Montgomery County's housing stock spans most of the twentieth century and the start of this one, and termite work tracks that. Germantown, with 91,249 people at the 2020 census, is mostly mid-twentieth-century development; Montgomery Village, 34,893 people, was planned in the late 1960s and 1970s; and Gaithersburg itself has 27,182 housing units across everything from older frame houses to the New Urbanist blocks of Kentlands and Lakelands. Slab, crawl space and basement construction all occur within a few streets of each other, and they are not the same job.
Upcounty growth keeps adding new slabs in and around Clarksburg and the north end of the county, which is where soil pretreatment before a pour matters most. At the other end of the scale, the small rural communities on well and septic have long perimeters, outbuildings and woodpiles, all of which bring soil and wood into contact.
The weather is the reason spring is the busy season: a humid Mid-Atlantic climate with warm, wet spring weather is what prompts a mature colony to send out swarmers. No temperature or rainfall figures are published here, because none were sourced for this area. What is reliable is the pattern, and it repeats every year.
Tell us what's happening and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a quick fix, and what termite control should cost.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
A written wood-destroying insect inspection for Gaithersburg sales, refinances and peace of mind, reported on Maryland's standard form.
Soil treatment before a slab or foundation is covered, for new builds, additions and garage pours across Montgomery County.
Nest location, treatment and moisture repair for carpenter ants in Gaithersburg trim, sills, porches and decks.
Inspection-led treatment for household pests in Gaithersburg homes and rentals, with the plan explained before any work starts.
Termite swarmers are winged reproductives that leave a mature colony in spring, usually after warm rain.
In Maryland, the Department of Agriculture issues the pesticide business licence and certifies pest control applicators.
Termite and vermin damage is generally excluded from a standard homeowners policy, and the policy and the insurer decide any claim.
Either, and it matters. Keep a few in a sealed bag or take a sharp close photograph. A technician can tell them apart quickly, and misidentifying a swarm is the most common reason people either panic or ignore a real problem.
No. The University of Maryland Extension notes that swarmers which get indoors die of dehydration, so dead insects are normal and tell you nothing about the colony. The colony that produced them is still in the soil nearby.
An older report quoting state agriculture officials said the eastern subterranean termite is the only species found in Maryland, and that is the species local work assumes. Nothing on this page refers to drywood or Formosan termites, which are not part of the sourced picture here.
Generally not. Termite and vermin damage is usually excluded from a standard homeowners policy, and the policy itself decides. The Maryland Insurance Administration is the state regulator, and our insurance claims guide explains how to read your own policy.
It depends on the perimeter and how much of it is under concrete. A straightforward perimeter can be done in a day; a house ringed by patios and a driveway, with drilling required, takes longer. The technician will tell you on the inspection, not before.
Normally no. Soil work is done outside, and where interior drilling is needed it is usually confined to a basement or garage floor. You will be told which rooms to keep clear and for how long.