Hi
I have one old chair which is infested with Powder Post Beetles.
I toke it apart and it is in pieces.
For the last three days it is sitting in my freezer at 0°F.
After the freezer session it will be will heat treaded at 140 ° F.
How long should i keep the Critters it in Heat?
What do you think? Will that take care of the critters?
Hilmar
Replies
I have a heating chamber ( a big Box ) with four 100W Light bulbs as heaters.
No problem with keeping the temerature constant with a programer.
The 50% RH, I don't know. I was thinking of putting a pot of water in the box.
Would a higher than 50% RH be ok also?
Hilmar
50% to 60% is about right as this will maintain the wood's MC at between about 9 and 11.5%. This assumes the bug riddled wood is somewhere near this MC anyway, which it probably is as it's a piece of indoor furniture, presumably kept indoors.
Putting a pot of water in the chamber may help-- but the key to successfully avoiding overdrying the wood is an ability to monitor the RH in there and adding or removing moisture as required. If you can't monitor the RH you are operating blind. If you can you should be okay.
I suppose a question to ask is is it worth trying to kill the bugs? How extensive is the damage, how valuable is the chair, either financially or via emotional attachment, and might it be easier to buy a replacement, make a new one, or make new parts to replace only the infected part, assuming damage is only partial of course, which is rather unlikely perhaps? Slainte.
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