You’ve made the mortifying discovery that bed bugs have set up residence in your home. The difficulty of banishing these tenacious pests is no secret, and it can leave you desperate.
Before you consider your house and belongings to be condemned, take heart from the sizable amount of evidence of the effectiveness of heat treatments for bed bug infestations.
Pure Environmental explains the advantages and disadvantages of heat treatments while defending our reasoning in providing them over other treatment forms. Read on to learn why heat is your best option for putting an end to your bed bug problem.
Table of Contents
- 7 Pros of Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs
- 5 Cons of Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs
- What Is the Success Rate of Bed Bug Heat Treatment?
- Pure Environmental Provides Quality Heat Treatment Services for Your Bed Bug Exterminating Needs
7 Pros of Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs
Bed bugs can spread to your home if you inadvertently pick them up in a hotel, hospital, nursing home, bus, train, library, movie theater, etc. They can also travel through the walls of an apartment building. Just one or two bugs can lead to a serious infestation.
Pure Environmental can eliminate this with our Portland and Tacoma heat treatment services. Give us a call to discuss the next steps you need to take to get rid of bed bugs.
#1: Heat Treatment Provides Quick Results
Perhaps the most appreciated advantage of heat treatments is that the treatment itself can be performed so quickly — in less than one day. Chemical treatments, on the other hand, require multiple services two weeks apart, often taking six weeks or more.
Bed bugs have adapted physiologically to resist many of the chemicals used against them, so the chemical approach is often characterized by multiple treatments utilizing different chemical combinations. A typical chemical treatment program should take 6-12 weeks.
Treatment must happen quickly because females can lay up to a dozen eggs in a day, which hatch within 6-10 days. If a female survives an initial chemical treatment, she could be spawning more bed bugs before the next treatment, making elimination increasingly difficult. Heat ensures that there are no survivors.
#2: Heat Treatment Has Consistent Pricing
Pricing for chemical treatment is highly variable and inevitably increases the longer it takes to find an effective chemical. At Pure Environmental, we always charge the same amount for our one-day heat treatment. Contact us today for a specific price based on the architecture and size of your home.
#3: Heat Treatment Is Non-Toxic
Heat treatments do not require toxins or chemicals that can be detrimental to your health. Considering bed bugs’ resistance to chemicals, those used would need to be fairly potent and thus can present a greater health hazard.
Instead, skilled technicians use specialized equipment to raise the temperature of your home enough to kill the bed bugs in the vicinity. Thermal probes are used to ensure that even the hard-to-reach areas (which bed bugs may use to escape heat) reach the desired temperature.
Bed bug mortality occurs at 113℉ for a period of 90 minutes or 118℉ for a period of 20 minutes, but the ambient temperature of the room must be a good deal hotter (~120-130℉) to ensure that all the nooks and crannies reach the required temperature.
Our heat treatments heat the home to 130℉ for 6-10 hours to ensure no bug is left alive.
#4: Heat Treatment Kills All Stages of Bed Bugs
This process can kill bed bugs at all stages of their life cycle, making it possible for you to salvage your mattresses and furniture. If the home is heated thoroughly by a trained technician, you can be sure that all the bed bugs are killed, whether they are in the egg, nymph, or adult stage. Bed bug eggs are the hardest to kill, but 90 minutes of heat at 118℉ will reliably kill them.
As long as the technician is skilled enough to put the temperature sensors in the right places and remains attentive to their readings, you can be confident all the bugs have been killed.
#5: Heat Treatment Is Effective Even in Hard-To-Reach Areas
Because bed bugs tend to hide in tiny cracks and crevices, they are often difficult to detect and then eliminate. Chemicals cannot easily reach all of these hiding places. Heat, however, infuses the entire dwelling and leaves nowhere for bed bugs to hide.
#6: Heat Treatment Is Discreet
Having bed bugs is not something we like to advertise because of the stigma associated with them. Inevitably, the idea of an unhygienic environment attaches to a home with bed bugs and people want to keep their distance. This can feel shameful and humiliating, even though the infestation is not your fault.
Neighbors will almost surely suspect that you have a serious pest problem if a pest control company makes frequent visits to your home, which are necessary for chemical treatment. Heat treatments, though, last only one day and won’t generate such suspicion.
#7: Pure Environmental Heat Treatments Come With a Warranty and Follow-Up Inspection
Pure Environmental understands that you want to be sure you are free of the plague of bed bugs that have caused so much distress. We can inspect your home to give you peace of mind and guarantee that any follow-up inspection after heat treatment will be free if live bed bugs are found.
5 Cons of Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs
#1: Heat Treatment Won’t Prevent Bed Bugs From Returning
Although it’s a good thing that heat treatments leave no harmful residue, they cannot prevent any future infestation of bed bugs if they are reintroduced into the environment.
Many of our customers wish to follow up heat treatment with a chemical treatment for added protection, but they must seek chemical treatment elsewhere, as Pure Environmental doesn’t offer that service.
However, we can point you to partner companies that will perform that service for you.
#2: There Is More Preparation Involved Than With Chemical Treatment
Heat treatment necessitates specific preparations to ensure no damage is done to your belongings or your home and that the treatment is as effective as it can be.
Items that can melt or otherwise be ruined by heat must be removed, such as crayons, photographs, cosmetics, etc. Aerosol cans can explode under intense heat, so they should also be removed.
Our technicians will need space inside the home to set up heat-generating equipment, so it’s best to organize or remove clutter to ensure the best distribution of heat throughout the dwelling. You will be given a detailed list of all preparations that must be made prior to heat treatment.
#3: There Will Be More of a Mess Afterward With Heat Treatment vs. Using an Exterminator
Heat treatment requires an extensive amount of equipment to be spread out throughout your home, so at times technicians need to move your belongings/furniture around to make room for it.
A good technician will be actively focused on details of efficient bed bug extermination during the treatment, such as sudden exposure of bed bug hiding places when the temperature reaches a certain value. This requires moving certain items in the home at just the right moment so bed bugs have no time to escape — laying back recliners, putting mattresses up on their end, removing couch cushions, emptying dresser drawers, etc.
While we do our best to respect your belongings, you may have to work to get everything back in its proper place once the treatment is over and our equipment has been removed.
#4: You’ll Need To Vacate Your Home for a Large Part of the Day
It may be inconvenient to have to leave your home for half of the day, but considering the effectiveness of heat treatment, you will be pleased with the end result. It’s only one day so there’s no need to book a hotel or impose on family members for a night’s rest.
Chemical treatments may not make your home off-limits for quite as long, but they must be repeated every two weeks for up to 12 weeks. This might turn out to be more or less preferable, depending on your schedule.
#5: Heat Treatments May Not Work as Well with Specific Building Materials
Some materials require much more time for heat to penetrate. If your entire home is concrete, a heat treatment may struggle to get or keep the temperature hot enough to heat through all your belongings. Concrete, brick, and stone-built homes are often more difficult to heat; however, more difficult does not mean impossible.
What Is the Success Rate of Bed Bug Heat Treatment?
If done properly, heat treatment should kill all the bed bugs in a home and completely resolve the infestation. Be sure you hire technicians who have real, evidence-based expertise and a credible reputation. Not everyone with a heating unit who claims to effectively treat bed bugs is a true expert.
The professionals at Pure Environmental are highly skilled and experienced in this method of bed bug treatment. Contact us today to schedule an inspection and learn how your home can become free of bed bugs in less than a day.
Pure Environmental Provides Quality Heat Treatment Services for Your Bed Bug Exterminating Needs
Bed bugs are not the kind of companions you want living in your home. If you have the misfortune of knowing this fact by firsthand experience, do not hesitate to get in touch with Pure Environmental for more information about our Portland and Tacoma heat treatment services.
Certified by Thermapure, Inc. to adhere to the best technical standards, you can trust the quality of our service. Besides eradicating bed bugs, our heat treatments are effective for deodorization and pasteurization.
Our process works as follows:
- Provide details about the home that are relevant to treatment, such as:
- Whether you have seen physical evidence of bed bugs
- Where you think they came from
- The type and size of your home, along with its access points
- Through an inspection by a technician or a canine unit, we determine the extent of the infestation and discuss pricing for treatment.
- Complete the tasks listed on our treatment preparation sheet.
- We conduct the heat treatment, but we recommend a thorough cleaning of your home and belongings following treatment. You will have to resituate items that we had to move to ensure effective heat distribution.
Call us today to speak with a representative who will help you schedule your heat treatment service.