Re: SB: Re: Borax foam?

[Speireag Alden <Joshua.M.Alden.91@alum.dartmouth.org>]

Sgrìobh John Salmen:

>I know we have probably had this conversation before but why are 
>carpenter ants getting established in your roof?

     They aren't.  And they won't, if I do it right.

>   If the roof assembly is dry its not
>a carpenter ant habitat.

     Yes, but I'm reconstructing an earthen roof.  Although I'm trying 
to keep the foam dry, it will sit on top of the impermeable membrane, 
and it's perfectly possible that a pinhole leak will make the foam 
wet enough to make it comfortable for ants.  There are no good routes 
to the roof for the ants, but they do migrate and establish new 
colonies, and I want my roof to be inhospitable, for obvious reasons.

     As you may recall, I did suffer a temporary infestation as I was 
putting the house up.  They explored up a garden hose which ran 
across the yard and into the interior of the house.  The interior was 
pretty moist at the time, because I was misting the newly-applied 
stucco, so it must have seemed like ant heaven.  I fought them but 
did not win until the following spring, when I figured it out:  they 
had established themselves in the insulation inside my stem wall and 
under my earthen floor.  The radiant heat which we used to heat the 
house finally dried the floor completely and baked 'em out in the 
winter, when they had no place to go, because the outside was frozen. 
We'd see little explorers from time to time, and holes in caulking at 
various locations, but then they stopped coming.

     I don't want a repeat, since I'd have to remove all of the foam 
to get rid of them.

>As for other materials I'm sure you have gone down the rockwool road
>(rockwool high density board - awful stuff but could work).

     Yeah, I looked at it.  I'd use it for insulating a foundation, 
but I don't think it would hold up in an essentially horizontal 
application, under a layer of earth, especially when I walked around 
on it.

>have not written to you for a while, hope your well

     Hanging in there.  Too many irons in the fire, as usual.  I'll be 
really, really glad when the roof is done, the interior is finally 
caulked completely, and the exterior stucco is finished.  Then I can 
move on to details.  But the rest of my life (child rearing and 
family, work, Aikido) keeps intruding on my building efforts.  Go 
figger.

-Speireag.
-- 
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it 
will be too late. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher 
(1803-1882) 

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