"We have a concrete block home. Termites cannot get into concrete."
Concrete block construction is the dominant building style in South Florida. Most homes in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, and Port St. Lucie were built with concrete block exterior walls. Concrete is durable, resistant to moisture, and does not provide a food source for termites the way wood does.
The logic seems sound. Termites eat wood. Your walls are concrete. Therefore termites cannot damage your home.
The problem is that this logic ignores how subterranean termites actually work. Subterranean termites do not need to travel through your walls to reach the wood inside them. They travel through the soil beneath your home. They find pathways into the structure that have nothing to do with what your exterior walls are made of.
Every concrete slab has expansion joints. These are deliberate gaps cut into the concrete to allow for thermal movement. They run directly from the soil beneath your home into the interior of the structure. Subterranean termites travel through these gaps to reach wood framing, baseboards, door frames, and cabinetry.
Concrete shifts and settles over time. According to UF/IFAS research, subterranean termites can pass through cracks as small as 1/64 of an inch. That is smaller than the width of a human hair. Any crack that reaches the soil below is a potential entry point.
Every home has plumbing and electrical conduit passing through the slab. The gaps around these penetrations connect the soil directly to the interior of your home. Termites follow moisture along pipe surfaces and use these openings as entry points.
CBS homes contain significant amounts of wood. Interior wall framing, door frames, window frames, roof trusses, attic framing, baseboards, and cabinetry are all wood. Concrete walls provide no protection once termites are already inside the slab.
Wooden decks, pergolas, fences, and landscape timbers attached to CBS homes are common entry points. Florida is the number one state for termite activity in the country. Any wood in soil contact near your home is an active risk.
In a wood-frame home, subterranean termites often leave visible mud tubes on the exterior foundation. In concrete block homes in Florida, the pathway from soil to wood is much shorter. It is almost always hidden.
Termites travel through interior slab cracks and pipe penetrations. They emerge directly into wall cavities where wood framing is already accessible. Mud tubes, if they form at all, are inside the wall. You will never see them from outside.
This is why subterranean termite infestations in CBS homes are often not detected until damage is already significant. The visible warning signs that alert homeowners in wood-frame houses simply do not appear the same way.
1177 Hypoluxo Rd Suite C-31 Lantana, FL 33462 (561) 727-8239
464 NW Peacock Blvd, Unit 106 Port St Lucie, FL 34986 (772) 783-4300
