INFOBOX:
House Longhorn Beetle: The House longhorn beetle (Hylotrupes bajulus L.) is a major cause of damage to roof timbers in buildings throughout Germany and Europe. The larvae hatching from laid eggs attack the sapwood of seasoned softwood timbers. The lavae can completely destroy the sapwood causing severe danger to the roof stability. Heartwood or wood of older houses is immune from attack. The timber of newer buildings often contains a large proportion of protein rich sapwood. This provides the potential for a quick development of the pests. House longhorn pest is a large black beetle (10-25mm) with six legs and long antennae. The female is bigger than the male.

INFOBOX
Heat Treatment: Heat treatment for pest eradication is a chemical free alternative to fumigation and spraying with liquid insecticides. Target pests are wood borers and also other insect pests like the Golden Spider Beetle or Pigeon Ticks. The key lies in the susceptibility of pests for high temperatures. All wood borers at any of the various stages of their life cycle will die if they are exposed to high temperatures between 45-55 ° C for an extended period (=exposure time).

Eradication of the entire insect pest infestation (eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults) takes place through thermal denaturing of the proteins and enzyms in the insects’ cells. In order to eradicate the complete pest population it is also essential for the heat to penetrate to the core of the infested timbers. Heating equipment contains ductwork and large portable oil fired heaters. Sensitive core temperature sensors are placed in the thermally least favourable positions to be monitored and to make sure complete pest eradication. The core temperature sensors are inserted in drilled holes. They are connected to a radio monitoring and data collection system. Based upon the heating equipment, volume of the space to be heated, the airtightness of the building, prevailing weather and the fabric of the building it takes about 8-14 hours to heat up the timber to the target temperature. Once the insect kill benchmark of 55°C has been achieved as all installed core temperature sensors having reached this target temperature an additional holding phase of one hour commences. Large roof areas can be devided into heating compartments.
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