Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center Receives Bora-Care Treatment

The Oriented Strand Board (OSB), framing and beams on the main structure of the Great Mountain Heritage Center was treated on February 23 by Ron Schwalb, licensed pest control operator and Nisus Corporation’s National Technical Manager.

ROCKFORD, Tenn. — Begun last June, the new Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center in Townsend, Tenn., should be finished in late summer. It will include a museum, auditorium and classrooms in the main building as well as an outdoor amphitheater and additional historic structures on the three-acre site. To make this much-needed cultural center a reality, Director Robert Patterson worked with area businesses to arrange contributions of services and materials. Nisus Corporation, a Blount County manufacturer of pest control products, donated Bora-Care termite pretreatments.

Bora-Care is a borate-based termiticide, insecticide and fungicide that is directly applied to wood and concrete, creating a barrier as well as eliminating wood as a food source. It prevents termites from tubing across treated wood and concrete, and protects against all wood destroying organisms, including wood destroying beetles, carpenter ants and fungal decay.

“Businesses across the entire East Tennessee area, especially Blount County, have donated goods and services,” explained Patterson. “I approached Kevin Kirkland, Nisus President, and he proposed that they provide their Bora-Care pretreatment. I hadn’t thought about having a termite pretreatment donated and realized this was a great opportunity.”

Patterson was also pleased that a Bora-Care treatment would not delay construction and was an environmentally sensitive pretreatment choice. Kirkland arranged for Nisus to donate all the Bora-Care needed to treat the large building as well as barn board siding and historic structures that will be brought in later. The Oriented Strand Board (OSB), framing and beams on the main structure, now at the dried-in phase of construction, was treated on February 23 by Ron Schwalb, licensed pest control operator and Nisus Corporation’s National Technical Manager. Schwalb worked with Patterson during the treatment to explain how Bora Care was applied and why it is so effective.

This phase of treatment was completed in only a few hours without interruption to construction. In addition to the main building, Nisus will donate Bora-Care pretreatments for old barn board slated for the building’s exterior siding as well as seven historical structures to be reconstructed on the property later this year. The treatments will provide long-term protection for this older material.