Residential Dust comes from 2 different sources.
- Environmental dust is brought into our house with outdoor air and consists mostly of biological dust like mold, plant tissue, and pollen and mineral dust like clay and sand. The environmental dust contributes from 5% to 50% of total dust inside a house
- Indoor dust is the most significant fraction of residential dust. The chemical composition of residential dust changes from house to house, but usually, we see construction dust, wood, lint, paper fibers, mold spores, and skin dust.
Because residential dust is such a complex mixture, there is no coherent opinion on what is the safe limit of dust in the air, but there is no doubt that excessive dust in the air may cause allergic reactions and respiratory diseases. LCS Laboratory offers an air sampling kit for testing dust concentration in residential air. If you think that your house is too dusty, you can easily check it using our professional-grade sampling kit.
Sampling Kit. Your sampling kit includes one air sampling pump, several cassettes to capture dust from the air (one cassette should be used to collect air dust from one room), sampling instruction, and a request form. The sampling procedure is quite straightforward and does not require previous training and can be seen here. We recommend 3-4 hour sampling to achieve the best sensitivity. The procedure is based on the methodology developed by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, USA) #0500 and can detect as little as 30 μg/m³ of dust.
Laboratory Analysis. Our laboratory is specialized in professional air monitoring and laboratory services to the industry and the public. We are the first and only company in North America that offers this test to homeowners as a way to test residential air. The samples that you collect must be returned back to our laboratory for analysis. We analyze your samples and report you amount of dust found inside the cassette and the concentration of dust in the air of your house. The cost of laboratory analysis and report are included in the cost of the sampling kit.
Understand your Laboratory Report.
Our laboratory will analyze your samples of airborne dust and will report the results μg/m³. There are no governmentally approved standards for dust in residential air. We believe that a standard for the ambient clean air of 120 μg/m³ – Ambient Air Quality Criteria (Ontario, 2012), can be used as a guide on what concentration of dust is acceptable in residential air. In other words, as long as the concentration of residential dust in the air is below 120 μg/m³, it is unlikely that you will experience an adverse reaction.
We’d like to assist you with testing of the quality of air in your house. Please email us if you have any questions or would like to order the DIY kit. The estimated cost of testing of 3 rooms is $250 + taxes and shipping. To see the exact quote and to place your order online, please folow the link below:
About our Laboratory. LCS Laboratory Inc. is a professional testing laboratory located in London, Ontario, Canada. We have been working in this area for 20+ years and deliver you only the best quality service. Many services, including this test kit, are unique to our lab and cannot be found anywhere else.
