The Floor That Told On Itself:
Discover what handyman.sg found under 40-year-old parquet in a Toa Payoh flat. Learn why termite treatment must come before floor repairs and restoration.
PEST CONTROL
handyman.sg
8/13/20264 分読む
The Floor That Told On Itself: What We Found Under 40 Years of Parquet in a Toa Payoh Flat
A parquet sanding job in Toa Payoh uncovered a termite colony hiding under 40-year-old flooring. Here's what we found, and what we did next.
Uncle Koh had lived in his Toa Payoh flat since 1983. The parquet was original, teak strips laid in a herringbone pattern, the kind you don't see installed anymore because nobody has the patience for it. He'd called Handyman.sg to sand and reseal it before Chinese New Year. A cosmetic job, or so we thought.
Our technician, Rizal, got about a third of the way through the first room when he noticed something off. Not with his eyes — with his knuckles. He'd tapped a strip near the skirting to check for looseness before sanding, the way we always do, and it gave a hollow tok-tok instead of the solid thud of healthy teak. A few strips over, same thing. Then he found it: a thin, dirt-coloured tube running up the inside of the skirting board, no thicker than a chopstick, disappearing behind the wall.
That tube is the giveaway. It's not decay, not water damage, not just "old wood." It's a mud tube subterranean termites build them as covered tunnels so they can travel between the soil and their food source without drying out or being seen. Uncle Koh had been walking over an active colony for who knows how long, and the parquet had been quietly hollowing out from underneath, strip by strip, while the surface looked completely fine.
This is where a lot of flooring jobs go wrong, honestly. Some contractors would sand over it, reseal, collect payment, and let the customer find out the hard way eighteen months later when a chair leg punches through the floor. We stopped the job instead and levelled with Uncle Koh: this needed a pest specialist before it needed a carpenter, because refinishing wood that termites are actively eating is like repainting a wall with a leak behind it.
We'd worked alongside ESC (Environmental Services & Consultancy) on a commercial job before and knew they ran proper NEA-licensed Integrated Pest Management programmes rather than the old "spray everything on a schedule and hope" approach. So instead of guessing, we got Uncle Koh in touch with them for a proper inspection.
What ESC found matched what Rizal suspected: an active subterranean termite colony, entering through a hairline gap where the skirting met the floor slab, likely there for at least a year based on the extent of the tubing. Their team mapped the colony's access points, treated at the source rather than just soaking the visible timber, and gave Uncle Koh a written report the kind you can actually show your town council or insurer if it ever comes up, not just a verbal "should be fine now."
Once ESC confirmed the colony was cleared, we went back in. Some of the parquet strips were unsalvageable hollowed out too far to sand so we replaced them with reclaimed teak matched to the original herringbone pattern, then sanded and resealed the whole floor. Uncle Koh got his flat back before Chinese New Year, and this time the floor underneath is actually sound, not just sanded and hoping.
That's really the point of this post: a beautiful parquet refinish means nothing if there's a colony still working away underneath it. Pest control and flooring restoration aren't competing services they're sequential ones, and doing them in the wrong order just means paying twice.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do I know if it's termites and not just old, worn-out parquet? Worn parquet looks dull, scratched, or has lifted edges — but it still sounds and feels solid when you tap it or press on it. Termite-damaged wood sounds hollow, may flex slightly underfoot, and you'll often find thin mud tubes along skirting boards, door frames, or where the floor meets a wall. If in doubt, don't sand it get it inspected first.
2. Isn't Singapore too urban and "clean" for termites? We live on a high floor. This is one of the most common myths we hear, and it's not true. Subterranean termites don't care how high up you are they travel through wall cavities, service ducts, and shared structural elements between units, not just from soil directly beneath your home. HDB flats, condos, and landed homes all get affected; older estates like Toa Payoh, Queenstown, and Marine Parade see it often simply because the buildings are older and timber fittings have had more time to be found.
3. Should I get the termites treated first, or the floor repaired first? Always pest treatment first. Sanding or resealing over an active infestation just traps the problem under a fresh finish the colony keeps eating, and now you can't even see the mud tubes anymore to know it's happening. A reputable flooring contractor should actually pause a job and flag this, not sand over it.
4. Will the pest treatment damage or stain my parquet flooring? A properly run IPM programme treats at entry points and harbourage areas skirting gaps, wall cavities, subfloor access rather than blanket-spraying visible timber, so staining or surface damage isn't typically a concern. This is one of the practical differences between an audit-driven IPM approach and old-style scheduled spraying, which can be messier and less targeted.
5. Is termite treatment a one-time fix, or something I need to keep doing? It depends on the extent of the colony and the building, which is why a proper inspection report matters it should tell you whether follow-up monitoring is needed. Termite colonies can be persistent, so ongoing monitoring (not necessarily ongoing treatment) is often recommended, especially in older buildings.
6. What's the actual difference between calling a random pest control number and a company that does "Integrated Pest Management"? A standard pest control visit often means spraying on a fixed schedule regardless of whether pests are actually present. IPM starts with inspection and evidence mapping where the activity actually is and only treats where there's a real threshold of activity, paired with sealing up the entry points so it doesn't just come back. It's slower to start but better for long-term control, and it comes with documentation, which matters if you ever need to prove to a town council, buyer, or insurer that the problem was properly resolved. Email esc.pl.singapore@gmail.com for an appointment today!
Handyman.sg handles the carpentry, sanding, and restoration side of jobs like this. For termite inspection and treatment, we work with ESC, an NEA-licensed pest and environmental consultancy serving both homes and commercial buildings across Singapore.
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