{"id":63,"date":"2011-02-22T17:12:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T17:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/?p=63"},"modified":"2026-01-07T04:51:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:51:59","slug":"nasty-powder-post-beetle-hardwood-floor-damage-in-oran-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/nasty-powder-post-beetle-hardwood-floor-damage-in-oran-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Powder Post Beetle Hardwood Floor Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently we had some \u201cfun\u201d on a job in Orland Park, Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>As we were prepping the beautiful 3 inch red oak floor and getting it ready to start the first sand, we noticed some unusual dust on the floor in one of the rooms. This area of Chicago has a bit of a termite problem so we automatically assumed that was the issue.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1851\" src=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Wood-Floors.jpg\" alt=\"Powder Post Beetles on Wood Floors\" width=\"700\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Wood-Floors.jpg 750w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Wood-Floors-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Wood-Floors-350x189.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We knew we couldn\u2019t continue on with the sanding and refinishing job, so we made the decision to pull up one or two of the boards to see what we were dealing with.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>You can see what we found in the video below\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-responsive-container\"><iframe class=\"embed-responsive-item\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VpKpHt57EVQ?rel=0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What a mess!<\/p>\n<p>As you can see in the video, this floor had been someone\u2019s dinner for quite some time.<\/p>\n<p>Pretty quickly we realized it wasn\u2019t a termite problem. From the size of the holes in the wood we knew we were dealing with some kind of wood boring beetle. We just hoped the wood munching invaders hadn\u2019t eaten up the whole floor.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1852\" src=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Damage.jpg\" alt=\"Powder Post Beetle Damage\" width=\"700\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Damage.jpg 750w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Damage-300x179.jpg 300w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-Damage-350x209.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We called a specialist inspector to come out and investigate the problem for us and it turned out they were Powder Post Beetles. These little critters are around 1\/8\u201d in size. As the powder post beetle larvae grow into adults they tunnel through the wood and leave 1\/16\u201d holes filled with fine powdery dust.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1853\" src=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle.jpg\" alt=\"Powder Post Beetle\" width=\"700\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle.jpg 750w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Powder-Post-Beetle-288x230.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Apparently one of powder post beetle&#8217;s favorite woods is red oak which explains why we had a family of them feasting on our client\u2019s floor. Unfortunately, powder post beetles are known to re-infest so the client hired a specialized pest control company to treat the floors to make sure they were gone for good.<\/p>\n<p>After a few weeks, when the floors were found to be completely powder post beetle free, we came back and started working on the floors again. We had to remove about 40 infested, chewed up boards from the hardwood floor and replace them with matching \u201cbeetle free\u201d red oak planks.<\/p>\n<p>After the repairs were completed, we sanded and refinished the floors and you would never know there was ever a problem.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Here\u2019s some more detailed information about these nasty little Powder Post Beetle guys:<\/h4>\n<p><em>A great website dedicated to these bugs with detailed information on prevention and control for your hardwood floors: <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190922104513\/https:\/\/www.powderpostbeetles.com\/powderpost-beetle-control#wood_floor_beetle_treatment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.powderpostbeetles.com\/powderpost-beetle-control<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Here\u2019s a <em>report from the University of Kentucky:<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/entomology.ca.uky.edu\/ef616\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/entomology.ca.uky.edu\/ef616<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Updated Jan 2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Damage done to a hardwood floor in Oran Park, Illinois from Powder Post Beetles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Powder Post Beetle Hardwood Floor Damage","_seopress_titles_desc":"Yikes! Powder Post Beetle damage on a hardwood floor we were sanding and refinishing in Oran Park, Illinois. This is how we dealt with the issue.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervillehardwood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}