New: PCT Service Technician’s Application and Equipment Manual

Like author William H Robinson’s other books in the popular series, The Service Technician Field Manual and The Service Technician’s Inspection and Identification Manual, the Application and Equipment Manual is a practical guide to the service technician’s daily activities – in this case, the use and maintenance of standard pest control equipment. For technicians just starting their careers, it provides a foundation of basic equipment knowledge; for experienced technicians, it will change what they know about application and equipment. 

 

For both veteran and newly newly-hired technicians, the dramatic changes made to modern insecticides in recent years have brought challenges of selectively matching the products – which have become more effective at lower concentrations – with the most efficient application methods and tools.

 

As Robinson describes in the book’s preface, “Insecticide application and equipment must be managed to have a successful business, but you can’t manage what you don’t understand. The next generation of professional pest control will know the methods and the tools of application, and use that knowledge to manage the costs of using them.” 

 

Thus, the objective of Robinson’s newest manual is to help service technicians understand the connection of insecticides, application methods, and equipment, and to provide illustrated instruction on use and maintenance of the equipment for the greatest possible efficacy. Many of the topics covered in this manual are related to information in the first two manuals of the Service Technician series, with cross-referencing included for the topics of each chapter. 

 

The 128-page, easy-to-understand manual is divided in two sections. Following the Introduction, chapters 2 through 8 focus on application methods including Liquid Application, Structural Wood Treatment, Soil Treatment and Termite Control, Foam Application, Fogging and Aerosol Application, Dust and Granule Application, and Gel Bait Application. Chapters 9 through 15 provide detailed instruction, illustrations, and parts lists for standard equipment including Traps and Monitors, Compressed-Air Sprayers, Foggers and Aerosol-Application Equipment, Foam-Application Equipment, Soil-Application Equipment, Dust- and Granule-Application Equipment, and Gel Bait-Application Equipment.

 

As the third in the series edited by Lisa Lupo, the manual’s format and text provide the same easy-to-read style and integrated graphics of the first two. “The manual’s focus on application methods, equipment, and the stewardship of that equipment provides a natural conclusion to the series,” Robinson said. “So it would be best placed as the third in a training sequence for new technicians. However, the equipment care and repair instructions and detailed illustrations in second half of the manual should provide very useful for technicians – new and veteran – and service managers alike.”

Additionally, he said, technicians or service managers could highlight specific equipment parts, or make notes in the margins, to indicate that these parts are available in the stockroom. “There is no other set of manuals in the industry like The Service Technician’s series, so their publication now removes the mystery too long associated with practical service technician field work, inspection/identification, and application – that is both economical and effective.”

 

William H Robinson has been Technical Director of B&G Equipment Co. since 2000, prior to which he spent nearly 30 years conducting research and teaching at Virginia Tech and Zhejiang University in Hangzhou China. Robinson has published more than 250 papers and articles on ants, cockroaches, fleas, wood-infesting beetles, wood protection, and application technology along with the textbook, Urban Entomology (1995), and the reference book, Urban Insects and Arachnids (2005). He is Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Conference on Urban Pests and earned his M.A. at Kent State University and Ph.D. at Iowa State University working on phorid flies.

 

The Service Technician’s Application and Equipment Manual sells for $24.95 and is available in the PCT Bookstore, at http://store.giemedia.com/en/the-service-technicians-application-and-equipment-manual