What Dust Particles Are In Indoor Air?

 

We hear a lot these days about particles, particles sizes and microns. This can be confusing and there appears to be quite a bit of misinformation out there online. So here we will try to simply What Dust Particles Are In Indoor Air and what it all means.

First of all, your indoor air or the air that your breathe in your home, office, car, restaurant, etc. always has dust or particles that are airborne. Even outdoors you will be inhaling particles. A particle is anything that has mass. So its not a gas.

Particles are measured usually in microns. 1 micron is 1:1 millionth of a meter. Still confused? A human hair is roughly 50-75 microns in size. have a look at the graphic in this blog.

Filters are usually rated in how effective they are in capturing certain particle sizes. HEPA air purifiers or HEPA air filters are rated to capture any particle that is sized 0.3 microns or bigger. A HEPA filter needs to be able to capture 99.97% of particles at this size or bigger to be rated a true HEPA filter. Most, as indicated in other blogs fail this standard miserably.

Most furnace filters, even the best and most expensive pleated furnace filters usually only capture anything that is 1.0 microns or bigger. Why? Because if they could capture anything as efficient as a HEPA filter it would clog too quickly and reduce air flow. This would burn out the furnace as it tries to heat or cool the home due to the high pack pressure. HEPA filters, if centrally installed, only filter 20-30% of the air in your duct work at a time to prevent this from happening. This is why if you have a HEPA system, you need also to have a good quality furnace filter.

You can see from the illustration that dust particles or what is considered regular ‘household dust’ can be made of many other particles. There are pet dander particles, rodent dropping particles, mould, bacteria, viruses, yeast, pollen, fibres such as fibreglass or asbestos and the list goes on.

Top 5 Particles In Indoor Air:

  1. Fine Dust
  2. Mould Spores
  3. Fibres
  4. Pet Allergens
  5. Bacteria, Viruses

So why is all this information important? Especially these days you want to keep the airborne dust load to a minimum.  


Smaller particles such as bacteria and viruses can collide with airborne dust particles and stay airborne for quite some time where they are the inhaled by whoever is in the building.

Top 5 Allergic Reactions To Indoor Air Particles:

  1. Eye irritation
  2. Sneezing
  3. Coughing
  4. Skin irritation
  5. Headaches


How do you lower the airborne dust particles in your home or even office environment? Make sure you have good indoor air quality and following these 5 steps to better indoor air quality.

Top 5 Ways To Reduce Airborne Dust Particles:

  1. Keep your ducts clean
  2. Ensure you have a high quality furnace filter
  3. Install a central HEPA filtration system 
  4. Use only HEPA filtered vacuum cleaners
  5. Have your indoor air tested to make sure everything works as advertised.

Still have questions? Give us a call and we can perform an indoor air quality test assessment and show you what your airborne dust particle levels are and if your air filtration systems are working.

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