Taesoon Kim1, Suhyeon Park2

1 Environment and Energy Research Laboratory, Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, Gwangyang, Korea 2 Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Korea Aerospace University, Goyang, Korea


Background: Non-chemical methods are as important as pesticides to control bed bugs. The most effective method is heat treatment. Underfloor heating is widely used in residential buildings in Korea, and the benefits of floor heating can be utilized in heat treatment for bed bug control.
Methods: Simulations of indoor air flow and heat transfer were performed to compare and analyze the temper- ature distributions with different heating methods for bed bug control using floor heating and fan heater methods.
Results: Even though the average indoor temperature of floor heating was lower, it was more uniform with floor heating than that of fan heating under the assumed conditions. Local cold spots disappeared with the floor heating method.
Conclusions: It was confirmed that floor heating has advantages over fan heating to achive uniform high tem- peratures during heat treatment for exterminating bed bugs.
Korean J Health Promot 2023;23(4):217-225

Keywords: Cimex lectularius, Bed bug, Insect control, Heating