Wood Preservatives
Protect your home with borates
There are numerous advantages to using borates on lumber. For one thing, borates have a low toxicity level for humans, yet they are highly toxic to wood-boring insects such as termites, as well as pests like slugs and snails. They are also toxic to fungi, such as brown, white and wet rot, that cause wood decay.
Unlike many other commercial wood preservatives, borates exhibit low toxicity to humans and other mammals—we can process and pass borates from our systems, insects cannot. Once the wood has been treated and kept dry, the borate protection is extremely long-lasting. Plus, borates do not affect the appearance or workability of the lumber. The borates are non-corrosive to metal fasteners used in lumber, they are odorless and they are extremely cost-effective.
That's why borates have been used as a wood preservative for more than 50 years in places like New Zealand and Australia. Plus, they can be applied to the wood itself, not to the soil surrounding a home resulting in the potential to leach out into groundwater.
If you are building or renovating a home, ask your builder about using a borate-based wood preservative.
