Subterranean termites are the timber pest Melbourne homeowners mean when they say “white ants”. They live in soil, travel in mud shelter tubes, and eat cellulose. They are not a cleanliness grade. A tidy kitchen does not decide whether a colony can reach a pine bearer.
The first useful question is not “what does treatment cost”. It is whether your local council treats the land as subject to termite infestation, whether the building has a documented management system, and whether anyone has looked recently. The Victorian Building Authority tells consumers to check with council, to keep cellulose off the soil, and to have an expert inspect before buying.
What you can actually see
Shelter tubes of soil on foundations, stumps, expansion joints or the inside of a meter box. Fine discarded wings after a dispersal flight, often near lights. Timber that sounds hollow or looks blistered. A door that suddenly sticks for no joinery reason. Many infestations stay hidden in a wall or a roofing timber until someone opens a cavity. That is why a torch-and-hope walk is not an AS 4349.3 inspection.
In Melbourne the construction details that matter are stump spacing, ant capping that has been cut for a pipe, a timber deck post in garden soil, formwork left under a slab, and a stored pine offcut against the house. Weatherboard cottages in the north and east, and older veneer with a wet corner, show up in the same conversations as new work that never received a durable notice.
The standards, named
AS 3660.1 is the termite-management standard the National Construction Code points at for new building work in termite-prone areas. AS 3660.2 is the guide for managing termites in and around existing buildings. AS 3660.3 is the assessment criteria for termite management systems. The VBA’s 2022 note on chemical systems is blunt: products used as chemical soil or sheet systems must be registered by the APVMA, tested in accordance with AS 3660.3, and applied in accordance with the approved label. A relevant building surveyor is expected to see enough detail before a permit, and to verify the system before a final inspection or occupancy permit. Appendix A of AS 3660.1 lists what belongs on an installation certificate.
Those documents are not a DIY booklet. This site does not reproduce the paid standards. It tells you their names so you can ask whether a quote is talking about the same thing.
Pre-purchase is a different document
A termite-only inspection written to AS 3660.2 reports on subterranean and dampwood termites present at the time. It is not the usual pre-purchase timber pest inspection. AS 4349.3-2010 covers termites, borers of seasoned timber and fungal decay. Buyers who accept a narrower report can miss rot and borer that still affect the price and the repair. The longer note is pre-purchase timber pest inspections. The VBA also wants a building inspection by a registered practitioner.
What a homeowner can do without becoming the technician
Keep soil, garden beds and mulch off weeps and cladding. Move firewood. Keep the subfloor dry enough to walk. Do not bridge a chemical or physical barrier with a new garden sleeper. Do not break a termite barrier and then assume last decade’s certificate still describes the house. If you find live termites, do not spray the tube with a supermarket aerosol “to see”. You can drive the gallery out of sight and make the next inspection harder.
Treatment choices — baiting, dusts, residual soil work, physical repair — belong to a person whose licence authorises the products and who will write down what was used. Ask for the product name and the APVMA registration, not a colour-coded package.
Maintenance after a system exists
Some barriers need inspection, replenishment or a durable notice that stays on the house. The VBA points at the NCC durable-notice requirement. If you cannot find that notice, say so to the inspector. An annual look is the consumer-facing rhythm the VBA still recommends in higher-hazard areas. This site will not invent a calendar fee.
Related: choosing a licensed technician, northern suburbs, eastern suburbs.
A first look that does not pretend to be AS 4349.3
Walk the outside after rain. Look at the soil height against weeps. Look at where a deck, a step or a garden sleeper meets the wall. In a stump house, open the hatch with a torch and look for shelter tubes on brick piers and bearers — do not crawl into a space you cannot leave. In a slab house, look at expansion joints, the meter box and the bathroom hob. Photograph, date the photos, and stop. That walk is how you decide to book an inspection. It is not the inspection.
If you find a live tube, leave it. Breaking it without a plan can make the next inspector’s job harder. Do not pour leftover fuel or a random concentrate along the foundation. The APVMA label and a licensed person exist because soil chemistry and non-target animals are not a weekend experiment.
Buying, selling and the durable notice
Sellers sometimes produce a certificate from a system installed at build. Ask whether the system was chemical or physical, whether it has been breached by later landscaping, and whether a durable notice is still on the house. The VBA expects surveyors to see installation detail on new work. An old PDF in a kitchen drawer is a clue, not a clearance.
Buyers should commission their own AS 4349.3 report rather than rely on a vendor’s termite-only letter. If the report lists conducive conditions and no live termites, that is still a negotiation about moisture and timber-soil contact, not a reason to relax.
Treatment families, named without a sales pitch
Baiting systems monitor and intercept foragers. Dusts and foams are for galleries a technician can reach. Soil-applied products are used where the label and the building allow a barrier or a treated zone. Physical repairs — replacing a destroyed bearer, fixing a leak — are building work that a spray cannot skip. Which family is lawful and useful depends on the species, the access and the certificate the house already has. Ask for the product’s APVMA number. Ask whether the work will be written to AS 3660.2 for an existing building.
Melbourne construction details that keep showing up
Ant caps cut for a later pipe. Formwork left in a pour. A timber lattice that hides the inspection zone. A bathroom leak into a particleboard floor. A retaining sleeper against veneer. None of these is unique to one suburb. They are why the northern and eastern notes talk about decks and stumps, and why a new south-eastern slab still needs its own certificate.
What this page will not do
It will not tell you a dollar figure. It will not tell you a colony is “always” in the north-east corner. It will not tell you a bait station “clears a house in X weeks”. Those sentences are how the old shopfront wrote. The VBA consumer termite page is the tone we are matching: check council, inspect, do not store cellulose against soil, engage an approved person if you find activity.
Putting the official pages next to a real house
Print or bookmark the VBA termite consumer page, the chemical-systems note, and the APVMA homepage before you meet anyone at a hatch. Ask the person whether they are talking about AS 3660.1 (new work), AS 3660.2 (existing buildings) or AS 4349.3 (pre-purchase timber pests). If they cannot name the document, they may still be a fine sprayer and a poor match for a purchase decision.
In a stump house, the conversation is often about ant caps, later plumbing holes and a bathroom leak into pine. In a slab house, it is about the system that was installed, the landscaping that bridged it, and whether a durable notice still exists. Those are different sentences. A single “termite spray” package that ignores the difference is a catalogue, not a diagnosis.
After work, keep the installation or treatment record with the building file. The next buyer will ask. The next inspector will ask. This site will not store it for you, because this site is not your contractor.
Field notes: termites
What to look for first
Before anyone opens a product, look for this: Mud shelter tubes on brick piers, expansion joints or the inside of a meter box after rain. Write the date and the room. That note is what you hand a licensed person, not a vibe.
A first look that costs nothing: Discarded wings on a sill after a dispersal flight, especially near outdoor lights. If you cannot see it safely, stop and photograph from the doorway.
Melbourne houses hide harbourages. Start with this one: Timber that sounds hollow, a blistered paint film, or a door that suddenly binds for no joinery reason. Then decide whether you are still in a DIY sentence.
Before anyone opens a product, look for this: A timber deck post, sleeper or lattice that meets soil and hides the inspection zone. Write the date and the room. That note is what you hand a licensed person, not a vibe.
A first look that costs nothing: A bathroom leak into particleboard, or formwork left under a slab from the pour. If you cannot see it safely, stop and photograph from the doorway.
What not to do
Skip this common mistake: Smashing a live tube ‘to check’ and then spraying a supermarket aerosol along the foundation. The archived shopfront loved shortcuts. This rebuild does not.
Do not do this, even if a neighbour swears by it: Pouring leftover fuel, oil or random concentrate into soil because a forum said it works. If a method is not on a label or an agency page, it is folklore.
The wrong move on this job is Treating a vendor’s old certificate as a clearance when landscaping has since bridged the system. Undo is harder than wait.
Skip this common mistake: Booking a termite-only AS 3660.2 look when the contract needed AS 4349.3 for purchase. The archived shopfront loved shortcuts. This rebuild does not.
The rule you can quote
The official line to keep in your pocket: The VBA tells consumers to check whether council designates the land termite-prone and to inspect before buying. Quote the agency, not this domain, if you need a rule to stand up.
When the conversation turns legal, use this: Chemical systems on new work must use APVMA-registered products, tested to AS 3660.3 and applied to label (VBA 2022). We are an editorial site. They are the source.
Read the primary page, then this sentence: A technician licence for pesticide work is a Health photo-ID card, not a sticker on a ute. If they disagree, the agency wins.
How Melbourne housing changes the job
In this kind of Melbourne building: Stump cottages in the north and east hide tubes on piers you can only see from a hatch. Copying a slab plan onto a stump house, or a tower plan onto a cottage, is how people buy the wrong product.
Housing stock does the work here: Slabs in the west and south-east hide the system in a certificate you have to read. The suburb name is a weaker clue than the hatch, the chute or the deck post.
Walk the building type, not the postcode: Inner terraces still have timber and still need a buyer’s own report.
After the first night
After the immediate mess: Keep the installation certificate and any durable notice with the building file. That is maintenance, not a second panic spray.
The next week is for this, not for a new fog: Walk the soil height against weeps after you add a garden bed or a new deck. If the animal returns, you have information, not a failed personality test.
File this with the house papers: Book the next inspection on a calendar the VBA would recognise — regular looks in higher-hazard mapped land — not on a shopfront’s invented subscription. The next buyer or the next inspector will ask.