I’ve talked to dozens of homeowners who got slapped with a termite inspection report and immediately felt like someone was selling them something. And honestly? Sometimes they were. The pest control industry isn’t villainous, but it does carry a financial incentive to push the pricier option—and with drywood termites, that almost always means tenting.
But tenting isn’t always right. Neither is spot treatment. The answer lives entirely in your specific situation, and if you walk into this without understanding what you’re actually paying for, you’ll either overspend or underspend. Both hurt.
So let me break this down the way I wish someone had done it for me the first time I dealt with a drywood termite infestation in a 1960s stucco house in San Diego.
What You’re Actually Dealing With: A Quick Primer on Drywood Termites
Drywood termites differ from subterranean termites in one critical way—they don’t need soil contact or moisture. They live entirely inside the wood they’re consuming. That makes them harder to catch and, weirdly, harder to treat, because you can’t just bait them with in-ground stations.
They leave frass behind (those tiny pellet piles that look like sawdust crossed with coffee grounds). They swarm, usually late summer or fall. And they can quietly chew through your walls, furniture, window frames, and roof rafters for years before you notice anything serious.
The two main options your exterminator will pitch are whole-structure fumigation (tenting) or spot treatment. Each runs on a completely different mechanism, price point, and success rate—depending heavily on your infestation profile.
How Tent Fumigation Works (and What It Costs)
Fumigation means crews drape your entire house in a tent and pump in sulfuryl fluoride gas—Vikane being the brand name most people encounter, in use since 1961. The gas penetrates wood, walls, everything it touches. It kills every drywood termite in the structure. No survivors.
You’re out of your house for 2-3 days. You bag or remove food, medications, plants, pets. It’s genuinely disruptive. But it’s also the most thorough option available for widespread infestations—and that thoroughness matters.
Cost-wise, budget between $1,200 and $2,500 for an average-sized home (roughly 1,500 sq ft). In California and Florida—the two states with the highest drywood termite activity—prices regularly climb to $2,000 or $3,500 and beyond. A 2022 HomeAdvisor survey placed the national average around $1,380, though that figure skews low because it pulls in smaller structures.
How Spot Treatment Works (and What It Costs)
Spot treatment targets specific, visible infestations rather than the whole structure. Technicians drill small holes into infested wood, inject termiticide (usually a foam or liquid like Termidor or Tim-bor), then seal everything back up.
Some companies also offer heat treatment, microwave, or electro-gun methods as non-chemical alternatives. Heat treatment in particular—where localized areas get pushed to 120°F or higher—has earned genuinely solid results in research, including a 1999 University of California study showing 100% mortality in heated zones when temperatures were properly sustained.
Spot treatment typically runs $200 to $900 per treatment area. Much cheaper upfront. But “upfront” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
The Real Difference: Infestation Scope Changes Everything
This is where most homeowners blow it. They see the price gap and assume spot treatment is obviously smarter. But spot treatment only works when you can actually find and access every infested area.
Drywood termites are sneaky about this. Your inspector marks three visible colonies. You treat all three. Six months later, two more surface in the attic nobody could easily reach. Then one appears in the garage. Suddenly you’ve spent $1,800 on spot treatments and you still have termites.
If your inspector finds evidence in more than 3-4 locations throughout the structure—or if your house is older with plenty of inaccessible voids and framing (think pre-1980 construction)—fumigation is usually the smarter economic call over a 5-year horizon. I know that’s rough to hear when you’re staring at a $2,800 quote. But it’s true.
When Spot Treatment Actually Wins
Spot treatment earns its place in specific situations. If you’ve just moved into a home and your inspection turns up one localized colony—say, a single window frame or a small section of fascia board—aggressive spot treatment can absolutely handle it.
It also wins when you’re dealing with a detached structure like a garage or guesthouse with one clearly defined problem zone. There’s no point tenting an entire property over a 200 sq ft infestation.
And if you have health concerns or chemical sensitivities, non-chemical options like heat treatment let you address the problem without pumping sulfuryl fluoride through your living space.
The key question to ask your inspector: “Can you visually confirm this infestation is limited to the areas you’ve marked?” If they hesitate even slightly, that hesitation is your answer.
What the Warranty Situation Tells You
This part gets overlooked constantly. Most fumigation treatments come with a 1-2 year warranty, and some companies layer on multi-year plans with annual inspections. Spot treatments usually carry a 90-day warranty—if anything at all.
That gap isn’t purely a business decision. It reflects how much confidence each company actually has in the method’s thoroughness. When Orkin or Terminix offers a 2-year warranty on fumigation and only 90 days on spot treatment, they’re telling you something real about expected outcomes.
Ask every company you quote about warranty terms. It’s one of the most honest signals you’ll get about which method they genuinely trust.
Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions
With fumigation: hotel stays for 2-3 nights ($150-400), boarding pets, replacing food someone forgot to bag, taking time off work. Real-world total cost frequently runs $500-800 above whatever the quoted treatment price was.
With spot treatment: the re-treatment risk is genuine. If the infestation spreads or wasn’t fully identified the first time, you’re paying again. And again. I’ve watched homeowners fund three rounds of spot treatments over two years before finally tenting anyway—spending more in total than fumigation would have cost from day one.
Bottom Line
Here’s what I haven’t seen anyone else say plainly: the fumigation vs spot treatment decision is really a question about information quality, not treatment quality. If your inspector gave you a genuinely thorough assessment—infrared imaging, acoustic detection, full attic and crawlspace access—and can say with confidence that the infestation is limited and accessible, spot treatment is completely legitimate. But if the inspection was a 45-minute visual walkthrough with a flashlight? You don’t actually know the scope of your problem. And treating an unknown with the cheaper option is precisely how you end up spending twice as much.
Get a second opinion before committing to either. Always.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does tent fumigation take compared to spot treatment?
Fumigation requires you to vacate for 48-72 hours. Spot treatments wrap up in a single visit—usually 1-3 hours—and you can stay home the same day.
Can drywood termites come back after fumigation?
Yes. Fumigation wipes out every termite currently inside the structure but offers zero residual protection afterward. New swarmers can re-infest your home post-treatment, which is exactly why annual inspection plans matter.
Is spot treatment safe for homes with children or pets?
Most chemical spot treatments require brief evacuation during application. Heat treatment is generally considered the safest route for sensitive households since it uses no pesticides whatsoever.
How do I know if my infestation is too widespread for spot treatment?
If your inspector finds frass or damage in more than 3-4 distinct locations spread across different parts of your home—especially attic spaces or wall voids—that’s typically a clear signal that whole-structure fumigation will serve you better over the long run.
Photo by Haddy Hartono on Pexels
