You can check for termites yourself with a flashlight, a flat-blade screwdriver, and about an hour of careful inspection. The key is knowing what to look for and where to look, since termites work from the inside out and often leave subtle signs long before you see obvious damage. A thorough DIY inspection covers both the interior and exterior of your home, focusing on areas where wood meets moisture or soil.
Tools You Need
The basics are a bright flashlight, a flat-blade screwdriver (for probing wood), and a bump cap or hat if you’ll be in a crawl space. A moisture meter is a worthwhile upgrade if you want to get serious. It detects elevated moisture in wood, joists, sills, and rafters, which flags the exact conditions termites seek out. A cheap one costs around $30 and can reveal problem areas invisible to the naked eye.
For harder-to-reach spots like wall voids, professionals use borescopes (fiber-optic cameras fed through a small drill hole) and sound amplification equipment. You don’t need those for a basic inspection, but they’re worth knowing about if you hit a dead end and suspect something hidden.
What Termite Signs Look Like
Before you start inspecting, you need to know the four main indicators of an active or recent infestation.
- Mud tubes: Pencil-wide tunnels made of soil and saliva, running along foundation walls, piers, joists, or up into crawl spaces. Subterranean termites build these to travel between soil and wood while staying protected from open air. Sometimes they also create tiny BB-sized mud spots on interior walls or ceilings, called pinholes, where they accidentally broke through and patched the opening.
- Frass (drywood termite pellets): Small, uniform, six-sided pellets that accumulate in little piles on floors, countertops, or windowsills. Drywood termites push these dry fecal pellets out of “kick-out holes” in the wood. They look like coarse sand or ground pepper.
- Discarded wings: After swarming, reproductive termites shed their wings. You’ll find piles of identical, translucent wings on windowsills, along baseboards, or near light fixtures, especially in spring.
- Damaged wood surfaces: Narrow, sunken winding lines under paint or wallpaper. Blistering or peeling paint. Buckling wood, warped floors, or swollen ceilings. These happen when termites feed just beneath the surface, leaving only a paper-thin shell.
Termites vs. Ants: How to Tell the Difference
Winged termites and flying carpenter ants swarm around the same time of year and look similar at a glance. Three features separate them instantly. Termites have straight antennae; ants have bent, elbowed antennae. Termites have a broad, straight waist; ants have a distinctly pinched waist. And termite wings are all the same length, while ant wings come in two sizes, with the front pair noticeably longer. This matters because carpenter ants don’t actually eat wood (they just hollow it out for nesting), so the treatment approach is completely different.
Inspecting the Exterior
Start outside, working your way around the entire foundation. Get close to the base of the walls and shine your flashlight along every inch, looking for mud tubes climbing up from the soil. Check both the outside face of the foundation and, if accessible, the inside face in your crawl space or basement. Subterranean termites can squeeze through cracks as small as 1/32 of an inch, so even hairline gaps in the foundation are potential entry points.
Pay close attention to anywhere wood contacts or comes close to the ground. Wood siding, door frames, and window frames should sit at least six inches above soil level. If they don’t, that’s a high-risk zone. Look at porch steps, deck posts, and any lattice or decorative woodwork near the ground. Posts embedded in concrete are also vulnerable because wood typically extends through the concrete all the way to the soil beneath.
Check the landscaping next. Mulch piled against the foundation is a common problem. It holds moisture and insulates the soil, creating ideal conditions for termites. If mulch is touching your wood siding or window framing, pull it back. Look for firewood stacked against the house, old lumber, cardboard boxes in the garage, or tree stumps near the foundation. All of these attract termites and give them a bridge past treated soil. Dense vines or ivy growing on exterior walls also provide hidden pathways.
Finally, look at your drainage. Water pooling near the foundation, leaking outdoor faucets, misdirected downspouts, or sprinklers hitting the house all keep the soil consistently moist and make your home more attractive to termites.
Inspecting the Interior
Move inside and work from the lowest point of the house upward: crawl space or basement first, then main floors, then attic.
Crawl Space and Basement
These dark, humid spaces are prime territory. Shine your flashlight across every foundation wall, pier, sill plate, and floor joist. You’re looking for mud tubes, and they can run along surprising paths: over foam insulation, across concrete blocks, or up plumbing pipes. In basements, inspect wooden beams, the underside of stairs, and any stored cardboard or wood products. Tap exposed wood with the handle of your screwdriver. Solid wood produces a sharp, firm sound. Termite-damaged wood sounds hollow or papery.
When something sounds suspicious, push the tip of the screwdriver into the wood. Healthy structural lumber resists the blade. If the screwdriver sinks in easily, or if the wood crumbles and reveals honeycombed galleries inside, you’ve found damage. Subterranean termite galleries typically contain soil and leave alternating layers of damaged and undamaged wood. Drywood termite galleries look smoother and more sculpted, with dry pellets inside, because those termites eat through both the soft and hard layers of the wood evenly.
Main Living Areas
Check baseboards, window frames, door frames, and any wood trim near the floor. Run your fingers along these surfaces and look for soft spots, bubbling paint, or sunken trails beneath the surface. Termites feeding on the cardboard backing of drywall can leave visible sunken lines or waviness in the wall’s paint. Tap the wood around windows and doors, especially in bathrooms and kitchens where moisture is higher.
Look at floors for warping, buckling, or areas that feel spongy underfoot. Check closets, utility rooms, and the backs of cabinets, all places you don’t look at often and where damage can accumulate unnoticed.
Attic
Inspect wooden rafters, trusses, and any other structural wood with your flashlight. Look for frass pellets, tiny exit holes, shed wings, and mud tubes. Attic infestations are more commonly associated with drywood termites, since they don’t need soil contact and can establish colonies in dry wood above ground level. They survive on the moisture in the wood itself.
Garage
Inspect the walls and foundation inside the garage, especially near the floor. Check around any stored wood, cardboard, or paper products sitting directly on the concrete slab. Mud tubes along the base of garage walls are a common find because garages often have more direct soil-to-structure contact and less foot traffic to notice early signs.
Subterranean vs. Drywood: Why It Matters
The two main types of termites in the U.S. leave different clues. Subterranean termites live in the soil and build mud tubes to reach the wood in your home. Their presence almost always starts at or below ground level and works upward. If you find mud tubes on your foundation, soil in the wood galleries, or swarmers emerging from walls or floors in spring, you’re likely dealing with subterranean termites.
Drywood termites live entirely inside the wood they eat, with no soil contact at all. The telltale sign is piles of six-sided frass pellets beneath kick-out holes. You might find these pellets on a windowsill, countertop, or floor with no obvious source above. Since drywood termites don’t build mud tubes, they’re harder to detect until the colony has been established for a while. Infestations can occur anywhere in the structure, not just near the ground.
How Often to Inspect
A thorough self-inspection once or twice a year is a reasonable schedule, ideally in early spring (before swarm season) and again in fall. Focus extra attention after heavy rains, plumbing leaks, or any event that increases moisture near the structure. If you live in a warm, humid climate where termites are especially active (the Gulf Coast, Southeast, Hawaii, or southern California), staying vigilant matters even more.
When a Professional Inspection Makes Sense
A DIY check can catch the visible warning signs, but it has limits. If you find hollow-sounding structural timbers, multiple mud tubes, swarms of winged insects inside or outside the home, or frass pellets appearing repeatedly, a licensed inspector should evaluate the full scope of the problem. Professionals carry moisture meters, borescopes, and sometimes trained detection dogs that can pinpoint activity behind walls and in other inaccessible spots. They can also assess structural damage and recommend targeted treatments.
Even without suspicious signs, an annual professional inspection is a good investment if you live in a termite-prone area. The cost of an inspection is minimal compared to the structural repairs a missed colony can eventually require.