Grist for the Mill

How do you treat 45 tons of wood in the air? Virginia PCO Bobby Houchins poses this rhetorical question as he takes in the impressive construction of the post windmill that stands on a hill in Flowerdew Hundred, a historic English settlement and farm. While the tongue-in-cheek reply "very carefully" comes to mind, Houchins' response was far more earnest when he was contracted last year to treat the windmill that was built to commemorate a post windmill erected on the site in 1621. It's serious business to Houchins when he is responsible for the control of pests at a monument marked with this kind of history.

While termite control is an age-old challenge for PCOs, termite treatments of historical accounts can be particularly demanding. Houchins is aware of the problems often associated with treating older structures. His company, Houchins Pest Control Service of Petersburg, Va., sits about halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg, an area steeped in history and, consequently, scattered with vintage buildings, some dating back more than 200 years. Houchins' 35 years of pest control experience, including a position as a federal exterminator for the government, has earned his firm about 90% of the area's historical accounts.

One of the more noteworthy jobs that Houchins' firm handled was the termite treatment of General Ulysses S. Grant's Civil War headquarters. The small log cabin, a national historical monument, was used by Grant and his troops during the historic "Siege of Petersburg." When the primitive cabin was reconstructed on its original site in the mid 1980s, Houchins treated the structure using special application methods.

In addition to protecting the cabin from termite attacks, Houchins also ensured that no signs of the treatment were visibly disturbing the structure's integrity. Prohibited from removing the cabin's floorboards to treat underneath them, Houchins had to take a different approach.

"We drilled from the outside, between the floor joists and the masonry foundation," Houchins explained. "Then we inserted long rods through the holes and injected [the chemical] under the floor. We also employed a trench-and-backfill treatment around the foundation perimeter. After we'd finished, you couldn't tell we'd been there."

His firm also treated the Blandford Episcopal Church, a structure built in the 1600s and still displaying its original Tiffany stained glass windows. Again, Houchins drew upon his experience, employing specific procedures to avoid marring the appearance of the aged building.

"To treat under the floor, we had to drill half-inch holes in the grouting of the tile floors," Houchins said. "When we grouted, we mixed lampblack with the new grout to make it match the age of the original."

A THING OF THE PAST. While the Flowerdew Hundred wind-mill was built to commemorate its older counterpart, it wasn't the mill's history that challenged Houchins, but rather its bulk and configuration. First, Houchins said, he had to figure out how to treat the mill.

"It took me about an afternoon," Houchins recalled. "When I was asked to treat it, I had never seen a windmill before except in photographs."

Windmills are rare in the United States, and the Flowerdew Hundred windmill is one of few working mills existing in this country. The original mill, the first wind-driven grist mill in English North America, was built at the request of King James I and the Virginia Company of London. Responding to the petition, Sir George Yeardly, the governor of Virginia, paid a millwright £120 to erect the small post windmill on his private establishment, Flowerdew Hundred.

Flowerdew Hundred, named in honor of Sir Yeardly's wife, Temperance Flowerdew, is one of the best preserved 17th century English sites in America. The post windmill that stands today on Flowerdew Hundred represents the type of mill that once was common in the English Midlands, and it comprises features that depict the development of windmill technology through the Revolutionary War.

Completed in 1978 by English millwright Derek Ogden, the new mill weighs more than 45 tons, including 5 tons of weatherboarding, which gives the structure strength and rigidity. Designing his work after 18th century mills, Ogden used freshwater quartz quarried in northern France and millstone grit quarried in the Peak District of England for the mill's two pairs of stones. For the mill's main framework and its 19-foot-long center post, English oak was used. This presented an open invitation to termites.

TERMITES ARE `HISTORY.' "There aren't many bugs that don't like English oak," noted Libbi Myrick, administrator of Flowerdew Hundred Foundation. While the new windmill wasn't showing signs of termite damage, Myrick said, the potential certainly existed, which prompted the foundation to contact Houchins Pest Control Service.

After determining how to treat the windmill, Houchins performed the application himself using Prelude termiticide, manufactured by Zeneca Professional Products. Houchins said he used Prelude because of its lack of odor, an important feature when he treats sensitive accounts such as homes where elderly people reside. He said he uses Prelude frequently because "if you use one product, you might as well go all the way with it instead of having mixing problems in your spray tank with leftover product."

Houchins said he first rodded around the base of each of the mill's four brick supports. He followed with an application of the termiticide into the center of the supports. Holes were deliberately left in the supports' mortar for this purpose when the original oak base beams were replaced by metal ones after the mill was built.

Noticing sings of powderpost beetle infestation, Houchins said he then used a hand-held B&G sprayer and shot the wooden support beams and center post. "When I was finished, it had taken me about three hours to make an application around the base of the windmill and to its beams," he said.

Now, several months later, when questioned about the effectiveness of his termite treatment, Houchins looks up at the windmill that overshadows the Flowerdew Hundred farm and says with a definitive nod, "Oh, it worked."

The rest, as they say, is history.

The foregoing article and photographs were provided to Pest Control Technology magazine by Clayton Quorum Inc., Wilmington, Del.