Beau,

It makes more sense to change out or repair your furnace in the later
spring / summer. Trying to let the building freeze to eradicate pests
will be at its best half effective and more than likely less so. Pests
are like us, they will find the warmest and most insulated places to
ride out a freeze. When it warms up they come out and are hungry
again! It is a pretty blunt approach.

Pest control is most successfully and far less dramatically
accomplished by having a good IPM (Integrated Pest Management Program)
in place.

If you are located in a climate where freezing pipes are a concern
then you should already have that heat pipe tape with the tiny
electrical wires already wrapped around the water pipes where they are
exposed. The same issue is also of concern with fire suppression pipes
and valves - a bad flood happened from these at a major institution
when a fire suppression pipe valve froze one winter's day. And having
been a volunteer disaster rescue person on that project I have to
volunteer that it truly sucks having to recover wet objects and
documents in the cold! When I lived in Virginia we had one year where
ice storms killed power for nearly two weeks and then a couple of
weeks later it happened again. So relying on your furnace to keep the
heat is sometimes not an option. Your most senstive collections should
be stored in the best insulated core of the building - and this does
not include rooms with exterior walls. The answer is to always be
prepared!

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Conservator
Los Angeles, CA



On 12/19/07, George Harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello,
> The collections manager at my museum thought that when we have our furnace
> replaced early next year that it might be a good time to let the building
> freeze to try and kill any pests that are in the collections.  I think it
> is not now going to happen, but some responses she got from a posting on a
> different listserv said that it wouldn't hurt the collections to have them
> be frozen.  This is completely wrong for some types of collections, of
> course.  Are there any resources that anyone can suggest that show how
> tempreature changes alone and tempreature in cunjunction with its
> relationship with relative humidity can damage collections?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Beau
>
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