Recently we had a customer ask us about a cockroach infested home. They asked our tech, John, if a “shock treatment” of ozone would be effective in killing all stages of these pests. Another concern they had was household appliances being damaged due to high levels of ozone. Read what our tech, John, had to say:
Thanks for contacting us with your question.
It is unlikely that 24 hrs exposure from a 6,000 mg/hr ozone machine would cause problems to your home. Rubber is one of the most sensitive materials. Rubber can begin to crack and other materials may get sticky with exposure to high concentrations of ozone over time. It is possible that some of these materials may start to degrade with this level of shock treatment. It is just very difficult to know what concentration the ozone would reach in any given home.
Since ozone is always reacting and oxidizing things, it is going to be less concentrated in the nooks and crannys where the roaches will go to hide. This makes it difficult to kill bugs with ozone. Ozone will drive them deeper into hiding places, but from what I have read, it takes a 2000 ppm concentration or more to kill many bugs and their stages. You may be able to reach this concentration if the ozone machine is in a small closet but not a whole house. Think of ozone like heat. If it takes 118 deg F heat for 90 minutes to kill a bed bug and eggs, will a 6000 Watt heater make enough heat to get the room and all its contents that hot? I don’t know. There are lots of variables and you would need good thermometers to make sure. The experts who do this have large heaters, fans, and thermometers to do this. You could put some cockroaches in an empty aquarium with an electric heater and get it hot enough to kill them, but that doesn’t mean that this heater will get a room hot enough. Not only does the air need to be hot, all the things in the room and places where bugs hide need to get hot enough. Getting enough ozone in the places where they hide would not only damage the bugs, but it would begin to damage more materials in your home.
So while I know ozone is effective at driving pests from a grain bin or other storage area, it is unlikely that many would die in a home fumigated with ozone. Perhaps if this was combined with some other natural products like Diatomaceous Earth applied in the places where these critters hide, the mortality rate could be increased. I am afraid that after the ozone storm, many of the bugs would crawl back out of their hiding places and go on as before.
If you have anymore questions about bugs and ozone, please reach out to us! We love to teach and learn!
