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A radio station conducted a poll for the coming election. They called 100 local people. There were 88 unanswered calls. Three people said they would vote for candidate A and nine people said they would for candidate B. A predication was then made by the station that candidate B will win the election by 3 to 1.

Several 75-L spore trap samples were collected in a house for indoor mold growth investigation. Nine and three spores of Asp/Pen-like spores were counted in a representative portion of the impaction area of the samples collected from the master bedroom and outdoors, respectively. The calculated concentrations are 480 counts/m3 and 160 counts/m3, respectively. How many professionals out there would say that the indoor to outdoor ratio is 3 to 1?

When an second poll (or air sampling/analysis) taken immediately after the first will give you different results in the ratio, the data from the first poll (or the second poll) is demonstrated to not be precise enough to make that comparison. Sampling procedure and analytical technique will both contribute to variability in the analytical results. Without a doubt, a quality laboratory can produce precise and accurate results much better than an average laboratory. However, the data is still going to be very variable when the raw count is low, even when it's analyzed by a Ph.D. microbiologist. It's just the nature of probability. How low is "low raw count"? That's where the quantitation limit comes in.

Lower quantitation limit (LQL) is the lowest concentration of an analyte detected in a sample that can be reported with a reasonable degree of precision. This is an important concept not being very well communicated to the IAQ/IEQ community. However, it is of absolute importance for data interpretation. Lower quantitation limit for spore count and culture plating methods is about 20 to 30 times of detection limit (DL) depending on the quality of the sampling and laboratory analysis. If the detection limit for Asp/Pen- like spores is 50 counts/m3, the lower quantitation limit is about 1,000 to 1,500 counts/m3. Any numbers below this range are highly variable. You could very possibly have 480 counts/m3 indoor and 160 counts/m3 outdoor in one set of samples and have 160 counts/m3 indoor and 480 counts/m3 outdoor in another set of samples collected at the same time and analyzed by the same Ph.D. microbiologist.

Stay tuned for next week's newsletter for further explanation on lower quantitation limit and upper quantitation limit.

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We all know that your lab can either be your best friend or your worst enemy! If standing between you and your customers is a "Money-Making Mega Lab" with un- reproducible data and watered-down cheap services, it is no wonder that your business is not growing the way you want it to grow. Quality analyses with personal attention from QLab can help you grow your business like no one else!

We typically help companies that have been frustrated with unsatisfying services from their current microbiology lab on issues such as:
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(6) lack of ethics

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Host: Joe Hughes/Cliff Zlotnik

Episode Notes: Join us as we go back in time and discuss the early days of the disaster restoration field with industry pioneer Major Long. Major was one of the first disaster restoration practitioners. Major Long, CR is a past president of the RIA (1978-1980) and also served a term as the associationâ??s disaster restoration technical director. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from one of the early innovators in the field of disaster restoration field.

Scheduled Time:
Date: Fri, September 19, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM EDT