Franz Termite Control

I inherited a house with significant dry rot and termite damage. Over the past few months I spoke to everyone I could find in the south bay area on the subject. The reality is that there are very few companies with experience in termite damage repair. Forget a general contractor. I spoke to several and got several estimates which varied all over the place. General contractors are not experienced with repairing termite damage. A general contractor can not give a reliable estimate until they start taking everything apart. Most will charge you to make an estimate and the estimate will be so vague and full of disclaimers that even after paying for it, you will not know how much the repair will cost. There are experts who are licensed to do WOOD repair. The problem with these people is that they are ONLY licensed to repair wood and if the damage goes beyond the wood, you need to get another company to come in to do the work.
After a great deal of search and investigation, I came across Franz Termite and I thank my lucky stars. This is the ONLY company in the south bay area that I could find that is both:
* Licensed and experienced in termite repair
* Licensed general contractors
How do I know that? Look at the front page of their website «we are a licensed termite control operator and a licensed general contractor specializing in…»
What does that mean? If they are repairing your termite damage and they find dry rot in your bathroom, they can rebuild your bathroom if necessary. If they are repairing damaged wood and have to go inside of your wall, they can take your wall apart, repair the wood and put the wall back up. Since they are experts in termite damage, it also means that if they inspect your house and give you an estimate, it is going to be a pretty accurate estimate. Unlike contractors who are inexperienced with termite damage, after doing an estimate they pretty much know what to expect during the repair. After doing my estimate, Mike told me that it was possible that there could be up to 10% more damage, but he strongly doubted it would be beyond that. He was right. He came in just a few dollars above the estimate. He also said that it was possible that the inspector could insist on further repairs that he could not anticipate. He was right. The inspector insisted we put up a lighted address because it was required in the local building code. But the inspector was satisfied with the termite damage repair. Once the new light was up, the house passed inspection.
Just so this does not sound like an advertisement, I will say that there were a couple of blips in the process. The repair work was delayed by a week because a member of their crew got injured in an earlier project. Also, we were communicating primarily by email and right in the middle of my work, they changed servers and their email went off-​line. Emails were bouncing and they were difficult to communicate with during that period. But these were small issues. Overall, communication with Mike was excellent. He would respond to my emails within a day. Before signing the work order, I had about a half hour conference with Mike (the boss) and Pastor (the foreman). They answered all of my questions openly and honestly. I also send a follow-​up email with more questions which were also promptly answered in detail.
Bottom line, if you have a house with visible termite or dry rot damage and you are within their service area, don’t waste your time calling anyone else.

A great experience — Franz came highly recommended by local pest control company that doesn’t handle termites. Great scheduling. Arrived on time. Inspector was sharp, articulate (good comms) and very thorough (every room, entire crawlspace and attic) and had 20 years experience in termite control. No ‘sales job’ to remedy the problem areas. Buy with confidence.

When you pay for a termite inspection, you expect the termite inspector to, well, actually inspect and well, FIND active termite infestations. We bought a house with a clean pest inspection, but within the first six months we started to see signs that we thought might be active termites – live termites swarming at dusk, pellets, paint showing signs of tunnels underneath, that sort of thing.
So we hired an «expert» from Franz to come out and take a look. We moved everything away from walls in the garage, cleaned up where we found pellets so fresh ones were obvious, made sure the crawl spaces were fully accessible and even saved a couple of dead termites to confirm they were the dry wood variety. Not sure why we bothered because it was like pulling teeth to get the guy to actually LOOK at anything we were concerned with. He glanced around, poked at some stuff halfheartedly with his stick and left. We thought his ho-​hum attitude was a little off, but people are weird, so whatever.
Report comes back clean, maybe signs of something old in one place. A little dry rot on a door, which is obvious and we knew about. But no big alarm about active termites. OK maybe we’re just paranoid homeowners.
Nope. Fast-​forward six months and we’re scraping paint on the side of the house. Tunnels and termites EVERYWHERE. With the pellet build up in the tunnels, there’s no way this was a brand new infestation. Called in a third company whose inspector found immediate signs of activity in several spots on three separate structures – house, garage and detached studio. We tented all three and are busy making repairs.
Bottom line is, learn how to detect the signs of dry wood and subterranean termites yourself. It’s not rocket science, as we’ve learned, and you’re likely to catch infestations earlier AND save yourself a few hundred bucks for a useless «report» from a company like Franz.

Michael, the owner, has been in the business forever. He knows termites inside and out. His father ran the business before he did. He is smart and very ethical.
I HATE subterranean termites and would nuke them if I could, well not really… I know they have a place in the ecology, but I hate the ones that used my house as a buffet cafeteria. I had Franz inspect and treat and then I had all the damaged wood replaced, For the moment I am termite free but worried and vigilant.
Franz does throrough inspections and good treatment. So do other companies. What separates Franz from the Terminex crowd is that they will not overtreat even if you want it and are willing to pay for it. I wanted to do annual treatment for subt. termites and Michael talked me out of it, said it was too frequent. He suggested less expensive periodic inspections and said that the treatments lasts at least 3 years and to retreat more frequently would be a waste of my money.
He explained why bait traps were ineffective and had been largely abandoned as a treatment means. I was about to buy a bunch on eBay. He doesnt upsell. He told me I likely didnt need tenting, just ground treatment.
If you want an honest termite company you’ve found it in Franz. They are a local business, not a franchise or chain. Many of the employees have worked therre over 10 years. The guy who inspected my house was VERY thorough, crawled into every nook and cranny under the house. Good thing he was thin, a heavy guy wouldnt have fit. The guys who did the treatment were employees, not subcontractors. They really look at their job as a war and they do not like losing to termites.
They were very careful to apply treatment in every place that a human could reach and it took some real effort crawling under the porch.
They honor their warranty too with no hassle. I found some live termites in a piece of wood next to my driveway and they are coming out for a free retreatment of that area. The house has no termite reinfestation to date and its been a year.
I see there are other reviews that arent as good as mine, but one seems pissed about a few days delay in a report and the other about trampling some plants. The guys who treated my place were VERY careful about plants (but it was ground treatment not tenting). I do Franz is the best termite company in town and will stay with them as long as I own my house.

ugh… still waiting for my termite report that I was promised yesterday. I am very unhappy with them right now!
update:
got the report three days late… wish i had just cancelled the report and gotten a refund.

Good response. 3 year warranty on tenting, though they subcontract the tenting.