Lab · Technology

Thermal remediation

Quick answerVerified September 23, 2026

What is thermal remediation?

Heating a structure or its contents until the pests inside die — typically circulating air at 55–65°C for six to eight hours to drive object temperatures above 50°C. It kills every life stage, leaves no residue, and leaves no residual protection either. The treatment ends the moment the heaters go off.

Reviewed by LTK editorial team

Where it fits

Infestations where every life stage must die in one visit. Heat reaches eggs, which is the thing most chemical programmes struggle with and the reason heat became mainstream.
Places and objects insecticides cannot go — electronics, sensitive accounts, occupants with chemical sensitivities, and items that cannot be treated any other way.
Accounts where occupant preparation is the failure point. Heat needs far less prep than a chemical programme, and occupants asked to bag and disinfest their own belongings are a documented source of treatment failure because the work needs a level of attention to detail they rarely apply.
Situations needing immediate relief and a defensible single-visit result, where the value is as much in the occupant experience as the entomology.

Where it does not

This is the part the brochure leaves out, so it is the part worth reading.

ANY PROGRAMME THAT TREATS 113°F / 45°C AS THE FINISH LINE. That figure is an adult number from lab exposure, and it is the number the sales material quotes. Measured under conditions characteristic of commercial whole-room work, LTemp99 for adults is 48.3°C — and for EGGS it is 54.8°C. Eggs survived SEVEN HOURS at 45°C. A job called finished because the sensors read 113°F has killed the adults and left the next generation.
Rooms where lethal temperature cannot be held inside the harborage rather than in the air. Air at 55–65°C does not mean 55°C inside a wall void, a mattress seam or a packed cupboard, and the insulative mass of the contents decides the real exposure. Failure here is the single most documented cause of bed bugs surviving heat.
Structures the pests can walk out of. Bed bugs detect and orient toward heat sources from 10–30mm away, so they actively respond to a rising gradient by moving — into cooler voids, adjoining units, and back afterwards. Escape to cooler areas is the second documented survival route, and it is an argument about the building, not the equipment.
Anywhere reinfestation pressure is continuous. Heat leaves NO residual whatsoever. In a multi-unit building with untreated neighbours, a perfect heat treatment can be reinfested the same week, and the customer will call it a failure.
Contents that cannot take it. Temperature-sensitive items are damaged at treatment temperatures, and the liability is yours.
As something a customer can improvise. Wrapping an infested mattress in black plastic and leaving it in the sun was tested and does not provide thermal control. Worth knowing because customers try it, then call you after the bugs have dispersed.

Sources

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