When exposed to poor indoor air quality, you are at a greater risk of breathing in inhalable particles. Large particulate matter (PM10) is less than 10 micrometers in size and is small enough to enter the heart and lungs.
At high enough concentrations, large particulate matter can be visible and will provide a clear sign that you need to improve your home’s air quality. Keep reading to learn more about how large particulate matter affects indoor air quality.
How to Reduce Indoor Large Particulate Matter
To preserve your health and well-being, it is important to make an effort to reduce large particulate matter in your home. There are several sources of large particulate matter in homes, including stoves, HVAC systems, outdoor particulate matter, and personal activities such as smoking.
The air quality in your home will be determined by the number of particle sources and how many particles these sources are emitting over time. Some ideas for reducing large particulate matter in your home are:
- Practice proper ventilation of gas-fueled appliances (i.e. heaters, stoves)
- Use a professional HVAC cleaning service to clean your HVAC systems
- Replace filters on HVAC systems
- Use a heating system to warm your home instead of a fireplace
Try some of these practices to reduce indoor air pollution from particulate matter. Whether your heat pump is backed up or the dryer duct is clogged, cleaning your HVAC also reduces the number of inhabitable particles inside your home.
Is Large Particulate Matter Dangerous?
Similar to small particulate matter, large particulate matter is composed of Inhalable particles that pose a health risk to those with pre-existing respiratory or cardiovascular problems.
The difference is that large particulate matter does not travel as deep into the lungs given the larger size of the particles. Fine inhalable particles (PM2.5) are more dangerous because of their smaller size, but the large particulate matter is still small enough to pose a health risk. Either way, breathing in inhalable particles can negatively impact your health if you are exposed to them in high enough quantities.
Keeping large particulate matter at acceptable levels is important for your health and longevity. For large inhalable particles, the acceptable indoor level is below 154.0 µg/m³. Although anything above 154.0 µg/m³ is considered unhealthy, these particles are not hazardous or dangerous until you reach 425-504 µg/m³.
One way to prevent particulate matter from entering your lungs is by getting an air quality test. Air quality tests accurately measure PM levels and other air pollutants to determine indoor air quality. To make this easy, we offer free air quality tests to help you find out the large particulate matter concentrations in your home.