Kordon Termite Barrier from Bayer has stood the test of time, remaining a reliable choice for protecting new structures.
Developed in Australia and proudly manufactured in Adelaide, the Kordon Termite Barrier System from Bayer has been successfully protecting homes across the country for close to 25 years. Kordon Termite Barrier contains deltamethrin, an effective active ingredient that not only kills termites on contact but also acts a powerful termite repellent.
Kordon is CodeMark certified, and when installed correctly during construction, it compresses the material between two building elements in such a way that it forms an impenetrable barrier to subterranean termites moving between the soil and the cellulose-based building elements. This barrier forces the termites to build mud shelter tubes in the open to move around the barrier.
Exposure trials conducted by CSIRO Ecosystem Science (previously known as CSIRO Division of Entomology) have proven the effectiveness of Kordon Termite Barrier. “CSIRO began trials to evaluate the effectiveness of various levels of deltamethrin as a termite barrier back in 1989,” said Daryle Swarz, national sales and marketing manager ANZ for Bayer’s Professional Pest Management division. “When the trial ended after a 25-year period, none of the samples with a normal level of deltamethrin at 2 g/m2 in the Kordon were penetrated by termites. Kordon is the only product of its type to have been subjected to such long-term and intensive in field trials.”
In 2002, CSIRO began a series of trials based on a new testing protocol designed to test Kordon under extreme termite pressure. One of these was installed in Darwin, NT and the other in Griffith, NSW. After the trial was concluded, and amidst the changes that were occurring at the time in CSIRO, the Kordon samples remained in place and were not collected.
“Whilst we had no ongoing regulatory need for the trial, we felt it was a great opportunity to keep the old trial going to prove the field durability of Kordon in real time,” said Jeff Einam, market development manager for the Environmental Science business unit at Bayer. “The challenge for us was to located the now ‘lost’ trial site.”
In 2016, utilising some old GPS coordinates they had located, ATP Research conducted a final inspection and relocated the trial from Darwin to a more accessible location near Townsville, QLD, which was easier to inspect regularly. The new trial site was established on uncleared natural forest in close proximity to three Coptotermes acinaciformis mounds, the same species that were present at the CSIRO site in Darwin. The mounds were selected based on physical appearance, size, absence of major ant activity and the obvious presence of termites.
The concrete mini slabs from the original trial, including all the Kordon trial samples, were carefully removed and transported to the new site near Townsville.
“Since then, the trial site has been inspected annually, most recently in November 2020, four years since its relocation to Townsville and 18 years since its original installation in Darwin. The results of this latest inspection are consistent with the results from the original 1989 trial, with no termite incursion through any of the Kordon material under test,” said Mr Einam.
“All the 26 remaining slabs had severe damage in the feeder timber located at the bottom of the pit that directly touches the base of the Kordon material. This proves that the entire trial is under extreme termite pressure from Coptotermes acinaciformis.
“We are extremely pleased with the trial results, proving once again that the Australian-made Bayer Kordon Termite Barrier not only acts as a deterrent, repelling termites, but also kills termites on contact.”
For sheet and perimeter applications, the proven performance of Kordon – which satisfies all relevant sections of the Building Code of Australia (BCA) – allows Bayer-accredited pest managers to offer termite protection for the life of a structure, making it a trusted mainstay in the pre-construction toolkit.
Case Study: Kordon Commercial Installation
Baby Bunting is Australia’s largest baby goods store. It has over 50 retail outlets throughout Australia plus online sales. To meet the demands of its growing business, Baby Bunting needed to construct a new store support centre. The site chosen was at Dandenong South, 43 kilometres from central Melbourne.
Requirements
Australian Standards sets out various options for termite management systems to be installed during building construction. For this building it was decided to use a combination of a concrete slab in combination with a sheet material to be installed at joints and penetrations of the slab. Joints and penetrations are locations that are particularly prone to termite ingress and hence require additional measures for protection.
AS 3660.1 sets out the requirements for termite management systems in new buildings. This Standard stipulates that the slab-on-ground shall meet the requirements of AS 2870 or AS 3600, and that joints shall have an additional termite management system as specified in the Standard.
Approach
For the joints and penetrations, the decision was made to use Kordon TMB, a termite barrier developed by and made in Australia for Bayer. Kordon is a laminate of polyester webbing impregnated with deltamethrin between two UV-stable sheets of polyethylene. The flexibility of the laminate makes Kordon ideal for use on commercial sites where various installation situations occur. Deltamethrin is a strong repellent for termites and at high doses is lethal.
The slab at ground level had 90 locations with pipe penetrations plus 76 metres of slab joints requiring the installation of Kordon. Pipe penetrations were protected with pre-formed collars made of Kordon (Kordon collars), which are quickly and easily installed prior to the concrete pour.
The entire Kordon installation was carried out by Trimec Pest Control, one of Bayer’s trained and accredited Kordon installers. When discussing the job and the vast number of penetrations, Paul Harris of Trimec commented, “Kordon is a great product and made a challenging site easy to protect.”
