Compared with earlier liquid-phase T-Jump studies, we find that a significant increase in T-jump magnitude can be gained by tightly focussing the pump beam to radial dimensions of ~40 microns in size. An even tighter focussed probe beam then passes through the centre of the excited sample volume. Such tightly focussed ns excitation pulses can cause cavitation and shock waves in liquid sample cells. A significant observation in this work is that zeolites, in the form of free-standing, compressed pellets of microcrystalline particles are robust under such excitation -we observed no evidence of cavitation, shock waves or damage. The lower thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of zeolites compared to liquid water also means that larger T-jumps for a given energy input are achieved. Comparison of time resolved silanol (OD) stretch shifts with steady-state Fourier transform IR (FT-IR) spectra confirm that single laser pulse T-jumps with magnitudes of up to + 145 °C above starting temperature are achieved with lifetimes into the millisecond time range. Allowing the Nd:YAG OPO pump laser to release repeated bursts of heating pulses spaced 1 ms apart achieves even higher levels of heating. These results establish an experimental and conceptual framework for the measurement and analysis of T-jumps which we expect to be applicable to a wide variety of zeolite-adsorbate systems.