Liquid Termiticide Trench and Treat Standard

Purpose

A soil termiticide job is a geometry problem wearing a chemistry problem's clothes. The product works where it is and nowhere else, so the treatment is only as good as its least continuous foot. A perimeter treated perfectly except for a 6 foot stretch behind a condenser pad is not a 95 percent treatment, it is an open door with a treated wall either side of it, and the callback arrives in year two with a warranty attached.

This SOP fixes how the treated zone is measured and volumed before a jug is opened, how a discontinuity gets documented instead of quietly skipped, and what goes back before the crew leaves.

Scope

Covers site assessment, utility clearance, trenching and rodding, slab and void drilling, backfill treatment, hole plugging, and the volume math.

Does not cover whether the product may be used at the site at all, which the pesticide label verification SOP owns and runs first, nor mixing, PPE or water source protection, owned by the PPE and mixing station SOP. Bait systems belong to the bait station installation standard, the yearly re-inspection to the annual termite inspection SOP, and product off target to the spill response SOP.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1 - Graph the structure and measure the zone before anything is loaded. Walk the full perimeter with a wheel or tape, sketch every elevation change, and mark each abutting slab, porch, stoop, planter, pier, plumbing penetration and expansion joint. Acceptance: a graph carrying total linear footage for trench, separate square footage for each horizontal slab area, and a stated depth to the top of the footing at every wall. Wrong looks like one perimeter number and no note that the rear addition sits 18 inches higher, the elevation that gets under-treated because the rod never reaches its footing. Stop rule: any wall where footing depth cannot be established from a plan, a probe or the customer, open a test hole there rather than guessing. Hazard: none beyond grade level here, but keep a tape or rod clear of any overhead service drop.

Step 2 - Call the locate and hand dig inside the tolerance zone. Place the one-call ticket the number of business days ahead your state law requires, commonly two, and do not start until every listed operator has responded. Acceptance: a live ticket number on the work order, marks matching the operators listed, and hand digging only within the tolerance zone your state defines around each mark, commonly 18 to 24 inches either side. Wrong looks like a trencher run along a wall where the gas service enters. Stop rule: unmarked utility found in the trench, stop and re-ticket. Hazard: if you strike a gas line, everyone leaves immediately and upwind, nobody starts a vehicle or uses a phone or radio in the area, no tool is used to crimp or plug the line, and 911 and the operator are called from well clear; strike a buried conductor and nobody touches the equipment or the ground around it until the utility arrives.

Step 3 - Read the label's site prohibitions against what you actually see. Confirm on the label in hand the setbacks from wells, cisterns and surface water, the prohibition on treating where a heating duct or radiant tubing runs in or beneath a slab, and the restriction on saturated or frozen soil. Acceptance: every prohibition checked off against a named site feature, with a graph note for each that applies. Wrong looks like drilling a 1960s slab without asking whether it carries in-slab supply ducts, which is how termiticide gets delivered into the return air of an occupied home. Stop rule: any prohibited condition present, that section leaves the plan and is documented as excluded, and the exclusion reaches the service manager before the customer hears the word complete. Hazard: the label is enforceable under FIFRA, so a rate or a site the label does not permit is not a judgment call, and applying anyway is use inconsistent with the labeling.

Step 4 - Trench to a uniform section, not to a look. Cut a trench against the foundation roughly 6 inches wide and 6 inches deep, then rod from the trench bottom down to the top of the footing where the label directs, never below the footing bottom. Acceptance: section uniform when you sight down the run, bottom bearing on undisturbed soil rather than loose fill, rod spacing on the label's stated interval, commonly about 12 inches. Wrong looks like a trench that shallows to 2 inches wherever a root crossed it, because that stretch takes a fraction of the volume and nothing on the ticket says so. Stop rule: rock, root mass or a slab abutment stops the trench, mark the station on the graph and treat it as a drilled section. Hazard: rodding drives steel into soil you cannot see, so keep the rod off any marked line, keep your free hand out of the rod path, and stand so a sudden release does not drive the handle into your face.

Step 5 - Drill slabs and voids with dust collection, never dry and open. Where a slab, stoop or hollow block void must be treated, drill on the label's stated spacing, commonly about 12 inches on center, using a rotary hammer fitted with a shroud and a HEPA filtered dust collection system. Acceptance: every hole carried through the slab into soil below rather than stopping in fill, spacing measured rather than eyeballed, no visible dust plume at the bit. Wrong looks like a bare bit and a shop vacuum with no HEPA filter. Stop rule: collection fails or the shroud will not seat on a curved surface, stop drilling and finish that section under a written control plan. Hazard: drilling concrete releases respirable crystalline silica, controlled under 29 CFR 1926.1153 where the work is construction and 29 CFR 1910.1053 where it is general industry, and where the specified control calls for a respirator it is worn under a written program per 29 CFR 1910.134; a dust mask does not address this route.

Step 6 - Apply at the label's rate and pressure, measured by volume delivered. Most soil termiticide labels state 4 gallons of finished dilution per 10 linear feet per foot of depth for a vertical barrier, and commonly 1 gallon per 10 square feet for a horizontal barrier under a slab; confirm both on the label in hand, because rates differ by product and site and the label governs. Acceptance: gallons delivered per section within 10 percent of the graph's computed target for that section, read off the rig's flow meter or sight gauge, with sub-slab injection held at or below the label's stated tip pressure, commonly not more than 25 psi. Wrong looks like treating until the soil looks wet, which under-doses sand and over-doses clay on the same job. Stop rule: a section that will not take its volume without surfacing into the structure or a drain, stop it, record what was delivered, and call the service manager. Hazard: the hose runs far above tip pressure, and a pinhole leak can drive fluid through skin with almost no visible wound, so inspect the hose before pressurizing, never run a hand along a hose to find a leak, and take any suspected injection injury to an emergency department named as a high pressure injection injury, which is a surgical emergency even when the wound looks trivial.

Step 7 - Treat the backfill as it goes back in, and close every hole you opened. Replace spoil in lifts, treating each lift as it is placed, then plug every drilled hole with cement or a listed plug set flush. Acceptance: trench refilled to original grade with no depression left to pond water, and a hand run across the slab catches nothing. Wrong looks like untreated spoil shoveled back over a treated trench, which lays an untreated layer against the foundation. Stop rule: plugged count not equal to drilled count, do not leave the site until the difference is found. Hazard: treated backfill is wet with product at use dilution, so the contact route sits on knees, forearms and boots for this entire step; gloves stay on to the last lift and hands are washed before anything goes near the mouth.

Step 8 - Depressurize, rinse, and walk the customer through what was and was not treated. Bleed rig pressure to zero, rinse wand and rod into the tank rather than onto the ground, secure the concentrate, and walk the customer to each excluded section on the graph. Acceptance: gauge reading zero before any fitting is opened, no product on hardscape, and a signature or recorded acknowledgement against the excluded sections. Wrong looks like a completion certificate showing the estimate's perimeter while the graph shows an untreated porch. Stop rule: customer disputes an exclusion, the job does not close as complete and goes to the service manager that day. Hazard: bleed pressure fully before breaking any fitting, because a coupler at working pressure fires a stream at eye height, and rinsate poured on the lawn is an unlabeled application to a site nobody assessed.

The record this produces

On the ticket and graph: trench linear feet, square feet for each horizontal area, footing depth per wall, hole count and spacing, product and finished dilution, gallons delivered per section against target, sub-slab tip pressure, one-call ticket number, and a named list of excluded sections with a reason each.

The service manager reads delivered against computed across the crew, because one job short by a tenth is soil type and four short the same direction is a flow meter or a habit. When a claim lands three years out, the section volumes and the exclusion list are the difference between a covered retreat and an argument.

Worked pass: slab on grade ranch, porch excluded

A 1960s slab on grade ranch, graphed vertical barrier 132 linear feet, footing top 12 inches below grade on every wall. Of that 132, a 22 foot run where the attached garage slab abuts the common wall must be drilled rather than trenched, per step 4's stop rule. Plus an abutting front porch slab measured 18 feet along the wall by 6 feet deep.

Volume from the graph: 132 linear feet divided by 10 is 13.2 units, times 4 gallons is 52.8 gallons for the vertical barrier at 1 foot of depth. The porch is 18 times 6, which is 108 square feet, and at 1 gallon per 10 square feet that is 10.8 gallons. Planned total is 52.8 plus 10.8, or 63.6 gallons.

Step 3 fails. Checking the label's prohibition on heating ducts in or beneath a slab, the tech asks about the floor registers and finds in-slab supply ducts running to the porch wall. The stop rule fires: the porch leaves the plan and the graph carries that 18 foot section as excluded with the reason named. Applied total is 52.8 gallons and the meter reads 53 at the end of the perimeter, inside the 10 percent acceptance on 52.8.

Steps 4 through 8 pass. Rod spacing held at 12 inches, the 22 foot garage abutment drilled at 12 inches on center for 22 holes with collection running, all 22 plugged flush, backfill treated in three lifts, gauge bled to zero before the wand came apart. The porch is handed to the bait station installation standard, and the customer signs against the excluded section by name.

References

• FIFRA and the pesticide product label, which set the rate, tip pressure, setbacks and every site prohibition, and are legally binding as written
• 29 CFR 1926.1153 (construction) and 29 CFR 1910.1053 (general industry) for respirable crystalline silica when drilling concrete, respirators under a program per 29 CFR 1910.134
• Your state one-call law and Common Ground Alliance best practices for notice period and tolerance zone hand digging
• See related: Pesticide Label Verification Before Application; PPE and Mixing Station Setup; Termite Bait Station Installation Standard
• State structural pest control regulations for treatment records and graphs, administered by your state lead agency