Bed Bug Heat Treatment (Part 2)
In my last blog I spoke about Bed Bug Heat Treatment, and why use Heat. Today I will focus on:
Methods of delivering bed bug heat treatments
There are several differing methods for generating the heat needed for an effective bed bug treatment. These are:
1) Direct Heat i.e. space heaters.
These are usually propane burners that have a naked flame and fan that heat up the room.
Whilst highly portable these are limited to the size and number of rooms that can be treated. Also the use of naked flames has an inherent risk of scorching. There is an alternative system that uses an enclosed flame and exhaust vent making it much safer and is good for high rise flats or individual hotel rooms.
2) Blown Air Heat
These systems avoid the risks of naked flames by using an external heat source and pipe the hot air in to the building. This has limitations as the flexible ducting used to move the air in to the building can lose heat in winter limiting the achievable temperature in the treated area. Also this type of heat has very restrictive high limitations.
3) Hydronic Heat
This system uses an external heat source to heat a liquid and then pumps the hot liquid into the building via insulated rubber hoses and then through a heat exchanger where an integral fan draws air through a radiator matrix which heats the air in the room. The advantages of this system are:Flexibility, it allows for multiple rooms to be treated at the same time and with added inline pumps can attain considerable height. Controllability, with flow and return temperature monitoring and thermostatic controls the heat in the treated areas can be controlled very accurately.
Less affected by external temperatures, as the system can run up to high temperatures and has insulated hoses the ambient temperature is much less of an issue than with the blown air system.
As with any system there are disadvantages, the main disadvantage of this system is the weight as it is a very heavy duty system and as such the components are fairly heavy. This is a problem for the team rather than a fundamental flaw that effects the treatment.
With all our customers we would advise that they ask for as much information regarding the purposed heat treatment as possible and make sure that whichever company and method you are going to use is fully insured. Trust K9 offer a 6 month guarantee on our Heat Treatments.
Till next time
Sleep tight Pete