Beware of carpenter ants! I had great dreams of building my own full scribe log home. I had the land, and I had a few larger white pines to "play with". Short story is, I ended up leaving the white pines about 100' from where I built the stick frame house,
, and had a problem with carpenter ants inside the house. Well, short story is, they had made a huge nest inside that white pine 100' away....and apparently they had satellite nests inside the house. We'd see about 20 a week. Well, I finally discovered the nest in the white pine, and removed it, and the ants inside are gone. Amazing how these critters work.
Obviously your concern with ants should be paramount....they would LOVE to nest inside your walls. I would NOT bring wood that close to the house to season. If you know it is clean, and temporary waiting to come inside, I'd say fine.
When I'm splitting now and we find ants, and we do frequently, we take the split, lay it down, and pour a little gas on them. I know of nothing else that truly kills them well. Did all sorts of experiments on that pine log nest....sprays, baits, powders....nothing killed them dead. I ended up cutting into the nest and dumping gas in it. The nest was amazing. About a 3' length of the log, about 18" in diameter, they had turned into a honeycomb. It was filled with big eggs, more ants than i could ever hope to count, and I turned the sections on end and poured in a little gas. problem solved. That morning I had tried to spray it....and all the ants...thousands of them...started running out. In about an hour, I had a section of my yard (the log was on the edge of the grass right were the trees started), this maybe 20'x20' section of my hard was covered with ants...all apparently fleeing towards the house! Amazing thing to me is, NONE seemed to go in the direction of the woods....all went towards the grass, towards the house. Anways, I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed all the yard and finally they seemed to die....but I went through 3 bottles of the stuff, supposedly killing on contact. Nope. They do a little dance and then be back on their way. Gas.....instant. The whole nest.
By the way, one of my experiments was with the borax powder stuff. I rolled the log over and covered the ground beneath, and the log, etc. The next day, there were hundreds of white ants running around, and they had collected a pile of their dead, maybe a few hundred ants.
So the spray pissed them off enough to flee, towards the house, and the war had begun and HAD to be finished. It doesn't take much gas, a cup is a huge amount....but it is the only thing I have found that will kill them, all of them, on contact or even within the vicinty.
I'd be very careful at all times looking for the buggers. Apparently any nests within 300' will be a source of satelitte nests. I spent hours outside at night trying to trace them down....it was "fun". Almost.
Since that log was killed....they appear to be gone. I'm in the middle of the woods, 300' radius here involves a huge amount of trees, possibilities, etc.
One last note....a few nights before the final battle, I went over to the white pine and there was another smaller white pine. I kicked it....and within 30 seconds, the entire end of the log was moving, enveloped in carpenter ants. Amazing to see! The next morning I went back to that log and kicked it, nothing. Not a single ant. I cut into it....nothing. These buggers will move, almost swarm I guess, from place to place looking for places to establish satelittle nests.
Don't ever give them an opportunity to do this in your new home!
rANT off!