Norminn writes:

On 8/9/2012 11:19 AM, Dan Espen wrote:
" writes:

I am being invaded by what I am told are carpenter ants.

They are similar in size to fire ants but do not bite.

Fire ant: 2 mm to 6 mm
Carpenter ant: 6.4 mm to 25 mm

Identify _correctly_ first.

If you have carpenter ants, you must eliminate the source of
moisture, they go after wet or damp wood.

Nothing else will work.

You are right, but it is hard to convince people to look for rotted
wood.

I'm glad I did.

We went through the money wasting call in the professionals phase.
All they want to do is get you on their schedule of periodic treatments.
A total waste of money.

Finally I took a flashlight up in the eaves and discovered I had a roof
leak running down some wood and into the wall.
The place was teeming with carpenter ants.

We fixed the roof leak and the ants were gone.
We did not spray to get rid of them.

But based on the OPs description of the size of the ants,
I don't think this is a case of carpenter ants.

--
Dan Espen