Insects are one of the greatest hidden threats to historic objects, artworks, and family heirlooms. Beetles, moths, and wood-boring insects can damage textiles, furniture, books, and works of art from the inside out, often before any problems are visible. Historic New England offers a safe, museum-grade way to eliminate these pests without harmful chemicals.
This service, called the Bubble, is used by Historic New England to protect its own collections and is also available to other museums, cultural institutions, and private clients. We are the only cultural organization in the region offering this type of treatment and one of only a few nationwide.
The Bubble is a sealed chamber that uses nitrogen instead of chemicals to eliminate insects from museum objects and collections. By replacing oxygen with nitrogen, it creates an environment insects cannot survive while remaining safe for historic and fragile materials. Objects remain in a stable, carefully controlled environment for several weeks, allowing all stages of insect life to be eliminated without pesticides, freezing, or harmful changes in temperature or humidity.
Historic New England uses the Bubble to protect its own collections and makes it available to museums, organizations, and private clients who need professional-grade pest treatment for valuable or irreplaceable objects.
Museums must continually protect their collections from pest infestations. Knowing the signs and patterns of an infestation is important, as the resultant damage varies not only from species to species but within species. Live insects, cast-skins (molts), frass/droppings, and holes or tunnels in objects are obvious signs of pest activity. Varied carpet beetles, webbing and case-making clothes moths, and wood-boring pests are the most common and most destructive museum collection insect pests in the Northeast region of the United States. Once an object is infested, it is important that it undergoes some form of treatment. Historically, people battled pests with paradichlorobenzene, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and hydrogen cyanide. The use of these types of chemicals and fumigants are now banned or discontinued because of their toxicity and associations with human health hazards. Modern treatment methods have become more sophisticated, practical, and safer.
After thirty years of providing a safe and effective non-pesticide, controlled atmosphere option for insect pest remediation using carbon dioxide (CO2), Historic New England has updated and converted to a nitrogen-based system as a safer and more sustainable operation.
Our facility is an anoxic controlled atmosphere system that uses nitrogen to displace the oxygen-rich atmosphere. By maintaining oxygen levels at between 1-.2 percent at a temperature of 80◦F for three to four weeks, the treatment kills all stages of the insect life cycle: adults, larvae, pupae, and eggs. Unlike alternative methods of treatment like freezing, nitrogen is safe for all types of museum objects because it does not expose them to sudden changes in temperature and relative humidity. The facility uses state-of-the-art technology to monitor and maintain stable environmental conditions inside and outside of the treatment chamber. Once objects have been put through treatment, they can be immediately handled but may need to be cleaned and inspected in the future for new pest activity.
Visit museumpests.net for more information on identifying pests, treatment options, and integrated pest management practices.
In addition to using the Bubble for its own needs, Historic New England offers this treatment service to other museums, institutions, and private clients. The treatment time, once proper conditions are established, is three to four weeks and clients should plan on four to six weeks from delivery to pickup to account for scheduling coordination and the time required to reach nitrogen concentration.
The cost for treatment is based primarily on size or volume of objects, in relation to the size of the Bubble. Materials, time, and cost of operation also factor into the cost of treatment. The Bubble is 968 cubic feet with inside dimensions of roughly 8 × 11 × 11 feet.
Base fees, before materials, time, and cost of operation:
| FULL BUBBLE | $3,500.00 |
| HALF BUBBLE | $2,000.00 |
| QUARTER BUBBLE | $1,500.00 |
| MINIMUM FEE | $1,000.00 |
No deposit necessary | Payment is due upon treatment completion | No refunds
To rent the Bubble, contact Adam Osgood, IPM coordinator, at (617) 994-6637 or AOsgood@HistoricNewEngland.org.
Send an email with “Bubble Reservation” in the subject line, make a formal request for treatment, and indicate any time sensitivity around treatment needs. Include the following information:
Formal contact information including name, street address and phone number, a list of items with consolidated dimensions Example: 2 boxes 20” H x 18” W x 24”L (stackable) and one upholstered chair 40” H x 24” W x 24” D (not stackable).
Once this information is provided, we will calculate the cost for treatment, determine availability, and confirm the reservation. Reservations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Tentative reservations will not be held. Cancelled reservations may be subject to a fee.
All items presenting with insect pest activity or suspected activity must be wrapped in 6mil plastic before delivery to the Haverhill facility for treatment. The client is responsible for delivery to our Haverhill facility and for bringing the items into the facility and placing them into the treatment chamber. All objects must be carried by hand into the chamber. Historic New England staff will provide carts and hand trucks, freight elevator operation, and supervision of placement in the Bubble. We may not be able to accept an object that exceeds the dimensions of our freight elevator (83 × 73 × 96 inches), since our treatment facility is on the third floor of our building. In some instances, it may be possible to carry a larger object up the stairs.
Historic New England has a dedicated quarantine room for holding infested or compromised collection objects while they await treatment. The room is 440 square feet, and rental fees range from $100-$1,000 per week depending on needs. The space is climate controlled, alarmed, and carefully monitored for pest activity. All materials brought to our quarantine room must arrive already wrapped in 6 mil plastic.
Historic New England operates and maintains a 968 cubic foot (8 × 11 × 11 foot) chamber made of ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) with an internal aluminum structural support. It has a large zip-lock door flap which allows clearance for oversized objects to be installed. Historic New England also has a smaller chamber which is 175 cubic feet (5 × 5 × 7 feet). This smaller Bubble is made of the same material but without any internal support.
The insect pest remediation technique we use is a form of anoxia created by displacing oxygen with nitrogen in the chamber until the oxygen level is below 1 percent. This level is maintained for three to four weeks, while also maintaining a temperature of 80◦F. Our technique ensures 100 percent mortality for all insect species at all life stages.
We use nitrogen from a nitrogen generator, a molecular sieve that separates nitrogen from the ambient air at 99.99 percent purity. The nitrogen is devoid of moisture as it exits the generator so the gas is humidified before introduction into the chamber to prevent a significant drop in relative humidity, which can be harmful for some materials. The relative humidity inside the chamber is maintained at 40–45 percent with a fluctuation of not more than +/- 5 percent over a 48–hour period. The atmosphere inside the chamber is monitored continuously throughout the treatment period. At treatment completion, technicians bring the temperature and humidity to the same levels inside and outside the Bubble before they open it. This ends the treatment cycle.
No, the client is responsible for delivery and pick up.
No, Historic New England does not insure items left for treatment in the Bubble.
No, we do not treat for mold, nor can we accept any items contaminated with mold.
Clients should expect objects to remain in the Bubble for four to six weeks after delivery. This could be shorter depending on many factors that can impact the speed of treatment.
We cannot guarantee efficacy, but we have an excellent track record.
Cost is based on several factors including size, volume, and stackability of the items. Therefore, we require this information in the reservation request process before we can provide a quote.
Depending on the circumstances, there may be a cancellation fee associated with this.
Clients are notified two to three weeks before treatment is complete, and a pickup time is scheduled.
Historic New England does not provide post-treatment cleaning or repair.
We work diligently with our clients to schedule a convenient time to retrieve their collections. Space in our treatment facility is limited, and items need to be collected within one week of treatment completion. Failure to retrieve items within the scheduled collection window may trigger a holding fee.
Payment is due within two weeks from completion of treatment.
Once the items are placed in the Bubble chamber, the temperature is gradually brought up to 80◦F and the RH is held at 40-45 percent. After the Bubble is sealed and treatment begins, the RH will not fluctuate more than 10 percent over the course of three weeks and the temperature will not fluctuate more than +/- 5◦F.
We refer to a paper from Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for Cultural Heritage: Proceedings from the 4th International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, 21-23 May 2019, Lisa Nilsen & Maria Rossipal, eds. (Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 2019).
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