The Wood Destroying Insect Report (CL-100) in Mount Pleasant

What the report covers

The organisms in scope are the ones that eat or degrade structural wood: subterranean termites, which in this region means both Eastern subterranean and Formosan; drywood termites where present; powderpost beetles and old house borers; carpenter ants and carpenter bees; and wood-decay fungi, which most people call rot.

For each of those the report distinguishes between active infestation seen at the time of inspection and evidence of previous activity. The distinction matters enormously in a transaction and is routinely blurred in conversation about it.

Substructure moisture is recorded because it is the condition that drives most of the rest. The form uses specific numbers rather than adjectives, which makes it one of the few property documents where you can compare one house directly against another.

What it does not cover is anything outside those categories. Roof condition, plumbing, wiring, structural adequacy, mold as an air quality issue — none of it. That is a home inspector's job and, for structural questions, an engineer's.

The report itself travels the same across the Lowcountry, but what inspectors find underneath varies by how close a lot sits to open water. Closer to Charleston, near the tidal marsh creeks and the Ashley River, moisture pressure on sills and joists runs higher than it does farther inland. The licensed pros we connect you with note that on a CL-100 for a Mount Pleasant property, since a clean report near the coast still means checking softer wood more carefully than one out past James Island or the Folly Road corridor.

The moisture thresholds, and what each one triggers

Two numbers do most of the work. At 20% wood moisture content and above, the report records an excessive moisture condition in the substructure. At 28% and above, wood-decay fungi are active, meaning decay is happening rather than merely possible.

A reading in the twenties is not a disaster and it is extremely common in Lowcountry crawl spaces, particularly in late summer. What it is, is a documented condition — and once documented, a lender or a buyer can reasonably ask what is being done about it.

The remedies are the ordinary ones: correct the drainage and the gutter discharge, lay or repair a ground vapor barrier, add dehumidification, remove the debris and the wood-to-soil contact. In most cases the fix is measured in hundreds rather than thousands.

Readings at 28% and above are a different conversation, because at that level something is already decaying and the affected members need assessing rather than just drying out.

That threshold matters just as much on inspections the licensed pros we connect you with run outside Mount Pleasant, in Moncks Corner homes near Santee Cooper land or closer to Biggin Creek, where crawl spaces sit low against the same coastal water table. A 28% reading there gets the same treatment as one found here: the board gets flagged for a contractor's assessment, not a dehumidifier, because the report has to describe what's actually happening to the wood, not just what caused it.

Conducive conditions, and why they appear on so many reports

A conducive condition is something that makes infestation more likely without being infestation itself. The list is predictable and it is where most Mount Pleasant reports pick up their findings: wood-to-soil contact, debris under the house, form boards left in place from construction, firewood stacked against a wall, mulch piled above the slab line, shrubs planted hard against the foundation, and poor drainage.

They appear on so many reports because they are genuinely everywhere, and because most of them were created by ordinary landscaping and storage decisions rather than by neglect.

They are also the cheapest findings on any report to clear. Moving a woodpile, pulling old form boards, cutting a shrub back and extending a downspout are an afternoon's work and they remove real risk rather than cosmetic risk.

A report with several conducive conditions and no active infestation is a normal report for this housing stock. It is worth acting on, not worth panicking about.

Conducive conditions cluster differently depending on proximity to water and tree cover. Near Daniel Island, retention ponds and tidal creeks off the Wando River keep grade moisture high enough that mulch-to-siding contact and low porch clearance show up on report after report, while lots further inland in Mount Pleasant tend toward earth-to-wood contact from aging landscaping instead. Neither pattern means infestation. It means the ground stays wet longer than the framing was built to tolerate, which is exactly what the report is there to catch.

Accessible, inaccessible, and what that word is hiding

Every CL-100 is limited to accessible areas, and the form records what was not accessible. Common entries: crawl space blocked by stored contents, insufficient clearance under part of the structure, finished basement or garage walls, areas obstructed by ductwork or insulation.

That section deserves reading carefully, because a report can be technically clear while the inspector was unable to see a third of the substructure. A clear report on a fully accessible crawl space and a clear report on one where half was blocked are not the same document.

If access was limited, the practical response is to clear it and have the inspector return. On a purchase, that is a reasonable thing for a buyer to ask for and an unreasonable thing for a seller to refuse.

Lenders sometimes reject reports with significant inaccessible areas, so this is not only a diligence point — it can hold up a closing.

Who can issue one, and how to check them

The report must be issued by a pest control company licensed by the South Carolina Department of Pesticide Regulation, which sits within Clemson University's regulatory services. The license number belongs on the report.

Checking that number takes a couple of minutes and it is the most basic verification available. It confirms the company is licensed to do the work and that the license is current.

The inspector should be willing to walk you through the findings and show you photographs. An operator who will not explain what they wrote is one to be wary of, and on a document this consequential you are entitled to ask.

Where a finding is significant and the same company is offering to fix it, a second opinion from an independent operator is cheap and sensible. That is not an accusation of bad faith; it is normal practice on any report that carries a large remedy attached.

What the report obliges anyone to do

On its own, nothing. The CL-100 is a report, not an order. What creates obligation is the purchase contract and the lender's conditions, and those vary.

Typically a lender will require active infestation to be treated before closing, and will want that documented. Previous damage is usually a negotiation item rather than a lender requirement, unless it is severe enough to raise a structural question.

Moisture and conducive conditions are most often handled as a negotiation between buyer and seller — a credit, a price adjustment, or the seller having the work done before closing.

For an owner not in a transaction, a CL-100 carries no obligation at all. It is simply a good snapshot of the condition of the substructure, and having one done outside of a sale is a reasonable thing to do every few years on an older house.