Bed Bug Heat Treatments

Heat treatment is used for the sterilisation and / or devitalisation of both imported and exported goods without the use of toxic gases. It is an environmentally friendly solution that is safe and harmless to your goods and products.

Goods suitable for this treatment include bird seeds, grains, herbs, bark products, Bali grass thatching, water hyacinth and moss products.

Bed bugs are a potential risk for any business. Rentokil can provide Irish companies fast and effective bed bug control solutions before they can go interstate or to the public.

We can offer two types of heat treatment facilities: Dry Heat treatment and Moist Heat treatment.

• All our ovens use convection heating technology to minimize as far as possible any chance of the product being burnt or ignited.
• We have been heat treating for over 20 years and we have never had a burnt product.

Dry heat treatment is the most common use of oven treatment.

Personal effects are heat treated to ensure there is no foreign product coming into Ireland to affect our flora and fauna.

• Depending on the product, the normal rate for heat treatment is 85°C for 8 hours, which is the temperature and time that has been assessed to be enough to sterilize a product.
• Other treatments vary from 85°C to 121°C (Soil) and up to 48 hours. Some timber products over 200mm in diameter require heat treatment at a rate of 56°C/30 minutes core temperature.
• This process involves drilling a hole in the product so that a probe can be inserted.
• Even though treatment is only for 30 minutes, it can take quite a few hours to reach the core temperature. This could possibly cause the product to crack, although we attempt to reduce this chance by bringing goods to temperature slowly.

We use this treatment in conjunction with Irish and European standards to devitalise products for import and export.

• Moist heat treatment is a heat process similar to dry heat but involves the adding of a minimum of 50% humidity.
• The moisture generated from the heat treatment penetrates the product and due to the temperature kills the pest.
• Some time may be required after moist treatment for dry treatment to be done to ensure the product does not go mouldy.