System Three Resins 644601123012 1-Pound Wood Care Systems Borate Powder

I originally purchased this item to treat a 300 year old teak coffee table that had evidence of powder post beetles. Evidence was old, but I just wanted to make sure they were gone before I brought the table into my house. It was easy to mix and easy to use. Dries nicely. Then my bother purchased a new piece of furniture and I noticed that it had active beetles. We used this, and they were immediately gone.I feel like this product is safe and effective.

My neighbor had a termite infestation because he had untreated custom wood cabinets installed throughout his home. (Termites are a part of living on the island of Maui.) I immediately checked my own home for untreated wood and found a bed frame that was untreated. This borate product was very easy to dilute and spray on. It dries in a couple of hours and provides the same protection against termites that the rest of my home. It also is far less toxic than other alternatives.

If you live in an area where wood rot and insect damage are a problem, it may be beneficial to pretreat your lumber with System Three Borate Powder solution. It comes in powder form in a resealable container, and dissolves easily in water. Follow the instructions that are provided and use a pump sprayer for easy application, and you're in business to protect your wood. There may be better value out there from other brands but System Three is a company dedicated to wood preservation and restoration and stands behind the quality of their products.

Weigh it out on a tared kitchen scale you won't use for food. Wear protective gloves, goggles and a dust mask. I added to a sprayer with weighed out water and it worked very well. Paired it with PC Woody repair products, after this soaked in, to fix some exterior dry rot. Still holding up well 18 months later. I'll use it again.

The borate powder is easy to handle and mixes well with water, the resulting solution is easy to apply, we used a garden sprayer. I only gave it 3 stars because we were shorted the stated weight on all five 1-pound cans of borate powder we purchased. The can says "1 pound net weight" but they are really 1 pound gross weight. The empty cans weigh 2 ounces each so I was shorted 2 ounces on each can, 10 ounces in all. This really detracts from an otherwise good product.

I bought this to hopefully extend the life of my small fence and gate which I know are on their last legs. They are over 20 years old and were obviously eaten up by termites. I later learned when relocating the hinges that they were also being demolished by wood ants (carpenter ants?). I applied the solution by paint brush and later with my garden pump sprayer. The next day, after it dried, the pitiful lumber was noticeably harder. A couple weeks later I noticed a big ol' ant thing stuck in the wood; guess it tried to escape and look for a new food source. When I replace the entire fence and gate, I will apply this borate solution to the lumber prior to starting the rebuild. This stuff works!!

I found some wood ants in my deck framing, I found that this will kill the ants and work on wood rot, too. I made a paste and smeared it in the affected wood and it solved the problem.

I had a prior wood destroying insect issue in a piece of antique furniture and the exterminator told me I could buy wood protectant online for cheaper than he would provide the service (<3 my pest guys) so I searched and found that DOT concentrates are basically industry standard for this in construction. I wanted to order the 2 oz. pouch from this brand as that is all I needed to make a 16 oz spray bottle for my small item, but it didn’t deliver to my area?! That’s what I took the star off for, sorry Board Defense. Fortunately this was still inexpensive and I have a kitchen scale so could weigh it out myself (which looks illegal and hilarious). Hard to transfer the weighed powder into the spray bottle cause it didn’t easily go through a funnel so had to make a little folded paper thing to pour it in, but after I finally got it all weighed and mixed and cleaned up it was very easy to just saturate the unfinished areas of the wood and let it sit for a day to dry. This will swell the wood a bit which was good for my old and dry antique in this case (guess I gotta oil it more), so be aware of that if you use it on something that could affect (doors and drawers etc). I assume this will be effective as DOT has a government (epa?) approval