Thatch Treatment in Foreshore

The Foreshore is office towers, hotels, the convention centre and the freeways, all built on land reclaimed from Table Bay. It is almost all commercial work here: food courts, hotel kitchens, parking garages and building basements.

The local picture in Foreshore

Borer is not much of a concern in concrete office towers, but older buildings converted to flats may have timber floors or fittings worth checking.

Big office blocks, hotels, apartment towers and the CTICC dominate, along with the station precinct, parking garages and service lanes. Basements, service ducts and refuse rooms link entire buildings, so rodents and cockroaches can travel floor to floor without being seen. Food courts and hotel kitchens need constant attention. Residential conversions add flats to the mix.

Rats from the harbour and sewers, German cockroaches in commercial kitchens, and pigeons on building ledges are the main issues. Bed bugs are a hotel and residential concern.

Something most people miss

Cables running through thatch should be in conduit. Rodent damage to a bare cable in a thatch roof is a fire risk that is easy to prevent.

For holiday rentals and lodges, insects falling from an open thatch ceiling are the kind of thing guests photograph. An annual check before the busy season is cheap insurance.

Tell-tale signs

1. Droppings on beams or along the top of walls under the thatch.
2. Fine powder dropping from the poles or laths onto floors and furniture below.
3. Insects such as cockroaches or spiders falling from the ceiling.
4. Tunnels or loose patches in the thatch where rodents have been moving.

Our process, step by step

We start by inspecting the underside of the roof, the poles, the laths and the eaves, looking for borer exit holes, frass and rodent or bird activity. Affected poles and laths are treated with a borer spray or injection designed for timber, applied to the wood rather than soaked through the thatch. For insects living in the thatch, we use a targeted residual treatment on the underside, keeping it as light as will do the job. Rodents are handled with traps and tamper-resistant bait stations placed at wall plates and entry points, and we advise on bird netting or proofing at the eaves. Fire safety of the thatch itself, such as retardant treatment, is a separate specialist job and we will tell you if it looks overdue.

Want the full step-by-step? See how our thatch treatment service works.

Prevention that actually works

• Ask your thatcher to check the poles and laths for borer whenever the roof is being repaired or re-combed.
• Have electrical wiring in the roof inspected regularly, especially if you have had rodents.
• Have open thatch ceilings in lapas and lodges checked once a year, since problems are easy to see early.
• Fit bird netting or wire at the eaves if birds keep pulling reed or nesting there.
• Do not store firewood or boxes against the walls under the thatch, as they give insects and rodents cover.

Pricing, honestly

The price depends on the size of the roof, how much of the structure is exposed and how many poles and laths show borer activity. A small lapa with an open underside is a very different job from a double-storey home with a closed ceiling. Rodent and bird work is added where needed, and timber that is too damaged to treat has to be replaced by a builder or thatcher.

Spraying the underside of your own thatch with a garden insecticide does very little for borer, which lives inside the poles, and soaking thatch in products not meant for it can do more harm than good. We would leave borer and rodent work in thatch to someone who does it regularly. Keeping the roof clear of overhanging trees is the one thing every owner can do themselves.

Thatch Treatment questions from Foreshore

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