How To Find Out If Your House Has Been Inspected For Lead Paint

If you're living in, purchasing, or renovating an old abode, y'all might exist concerned about you or your family being exposed to lead paint.

In this commodity, we'll talk over how to place lead paint in your home and what you can do almost it.

Why Is Lead Pigment Unsafe?

Co-ordinate to the EPA, lead is a neurotoxin that can cause a multifariousness of health problems. Information technology's especially unsafe for young children, as elevated blood lead levels can event in developmental, behavioral, and learning deficiencies.

For significant women, exposure to lead has been associated with increased risks of miscarriage, low birth weight, and impaired neurodevelopment.

How Can You Place Lead Paint?

Although yous might suspect that yous accept some lead paint in your domicile, at that place'southward no way to exist 100% sure without a proper lead inspection.

This unremarkably involves an EPA-certified inspector using a special tool called an XRF analyzer. Ten-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis fires x-ray beams into a paint sample then measures the resulting energy signatures to determine how much atomic number 82 is present.

Lead inspectors use handheld XRF analyzers, which resemble radar guns, to methodically check all painted surfaces. A measurement of more 0.5 milligrams of pb per foursquare centimeter is considered positive for pb-based paint.

Only how do you know if you should become a lead inspection?

Here are 5 steps you tin take — and signs y'all can expect for — to help identify possible lead paint:

1. Know when your home was built
2. Recognize the symptoms of lead
3. Look for signs of damaged paint
4. Check for sub-layers of paint
5. Dwelling house lead examination kits

These steps will help you determine the approximate risk of having lead paint in your dwelling house or building.

Go on in heed that the dangers of lead paint is greater for households with young children (see step 2), who are more likely to come into contact with chipped paint or pb grit.

Mostly, atomic number 82 paint that isn't damaged or chipping (meet step iii) isn't considered hazardous, unless it's on a "high-hazard surface" that gets a lot of wear-and-tear, such as window sills, door frames, stairs, railings, banisters, and porches.

If you lot live in an apartment in New York City and in that location'southward a child under 6 in your household, your landlord is required to annually inspect and repair all lead paint hazards (per Local Law i).

#i – Know When Your Dwelling house Was Congenital

The sale of lead paint for residential employ was banned in New York Metropolis in 1960, and it was banned beyond the entire United States in 1978. Equally a dominion of thumb, if your home was built before 1978 you should assume that lead paint was used.

The data backs this up — co-ordinate to the EPA, approximately one-half of homes congenital before 1978 have lead pigment. And the older the home is, the more than likely it is to have lead paint. For homes built earlier 1940, the risk of containing atomic number 82 paint is near ix out of 10.

If you're non sure when your domicile was built, you tin effort asking the previous owner, seller, or landlord. The Atomic number 82-Based Paint Disclosure Rule (Section 1018 of Championship X) requires sellers and landlords to disclose any information about potential pb paint hazards in housing built earlier 1978.

If your habitation was built afterwards 1978, you shouldn't rule out atomic number 82 pigment either.

Although it was illegal to sell lead paint after 1978, its actual usage was still in a gray area for many years. It's a known fact that some builders and painters stored and used atomic number 82-based paint throughout the 1980'south and even the early 1990's.

#2 – Recognize the Symptoms of Lead

Recognizing the early symptoms of lead poisoning is another way to identify atomic number 82 pigment. If you live in an older home and your family is experiencing symptoms, it's very likely that pb paint is the cause.

Nonetheless, lead poisoning doesn't have a single telltale symptom — it can present in many dissimilar and often nonspecific means. Typical early symptoms of lead paint exposure include:

• Headaches
• Nausea and fatigue
• Intermittent intestinal pain
• Muscle hurting
• Loss of appetite
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Low, memory loss, and personality change
• Weakness, pain, or tingling in the extremities

Young children are peculiarly at risk when information technology comes to lead. Not only tin atomic number 82 exposure cause developmental problems, merely children are more susceptible to being exposed to lead from touching and ingesting paint fries or lead dust.

Additional symptoms of elevated claret pb levels in children include irritability, learning difficulties, and behavioral issues.

For more than information nigh mutual symptoms of lead poisoning in children, babies, adults, and pets, check out our commodity: Signs and Symptoms of Lead Poisoning at Home.

#3 – Wait For Signs of Damaged Paint

Lead-based paint is but chancy if it'south damaged or deteriorating. Well-maintained paint, even if information technology contains pb, is not an immediate danger to your health (unless it's on a loftier-risk surface).

If you're trying to place lead paint, start by looking for areas with damaged paint. That's where your concern about atomic number 82 paint risks should be the highest. Damaged pigment produces lead-contaminated grit and paint fries that may be accidentally inhaled or ingested.

A mutual misconception is that lead pigment deteriorates in a distinctive way, referred to every bit "alligatoring." This describes a design of not bad paint on a surface that resembles the scales of an alligator. Alligatoring is not actually unique to atomic number 82 pigment — notwithstanding, it does point that the pigment is old, and quondam paint is more likely to incorporate atomic number 82.

Signs of damaged paint (lead paint hazards) include:

• Peeling
• Chipping
• Chalking
• Cracking
• Dampness
• Bubbling
• Teeth marks

Lead paint on certain "high-risk surfaces" is also considered hazardous, even when information technology'due south not damaged or deteriorating. These surfaces are especially susceptible to clothing and tear due to friction, impact, moisture, or chewing.

For example, pay actress attending to paint well-nigh doorways and windowsills which is likely to chip due to frictional contact. Places with a lot of moisture, such as bathroom and basement walls, are also more likely to showroom paint deterioration due to steam or condensation.

Other high-risk surfaces include baseboards, stairs, railings, banisters, and porches

#4 – Cheque for Sub-Layers of Pigment

Some other sign that points to lead paint is if you notice multiple layers of paint present on surfaces, particularly in older, pre-1978 buildings.

Stripping off one-time pigment tin exist a cumbersome job, so some people opt to paint over it instead. Although y'all may see a fresh, clean-looking coat of paint on the surface, it might be worth looking deeper if you lot suspect or are concerned about pb paint hazards.

Especially in places where paint is already damaged or chipping, you might find sub-layers of paint underneath. These are old coatings that have been painted over during repair or renovation. For the same reasons as to a higher place, the older the paint, the more than likely it contains pb.

In general, you lot should assume that paint is pb-based if sub-layers of pigment are found on a surface in buildings constructed before 1978.

#5 – Home Pb Test Kits

If at that place's a strong suspicion or business concern about pb paint, you might consider buying an at-home lead test kit. Atomic number 82 test kits apply special chemicals that change color to bespeak the presence of atomic number 82 paint.

Although they are relatively quick and inexpensive, habitation lead test kits are not considered very authentic or reliable. You should never rely on these tests to definitively confirm or rule out the presence of lead paint. That said, you lot can consider the results in combination with the signs higher up to help decide your adjacent steps.

The EPA's Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Dominion was established in 2008 to gear up performance criteria for lead examination kits, including thresholds for both simulated positives and false negatives. While there aren't any lead test kits that meet both criteria nevertheless, the EPA has currently recognized iii lead test kits with less than a 5% charge per unit of false negatives. In other words, there'south less than a five% take chances — or ane out of 20 cases — that these tests will give a negative outcome when the paint really contains atomic number 82.

The 3 EPA-recognized lead test kits are:

• 3M™ LeadCheck™
• D-Lead®
• State of Massachusetts Exam Kit (Annotation: only available in MA)

However, another limitation of home test kits to exist enlightened of is that they can only detect pb in the outermost layer of paint. If you have multiple layers, lead paint that is covered upwards by newer paint will not be detected.

For more information about home lead test kits, cheque out our article: How to Test for Lead Paint: 3 Types of Lead Paint Testing.

Need Help Identifying or Removing Pb Pigment Hazards?

If you take questions or concerns about lead paint, Green Orchard Grouping is here to help.

We are a certified lead inspection & remediation house in New York City, with over 25 years of experience helping families and organizations like the New York City Housing Say-so (NYCHA) place, assess, and remediate lead.

Source: https://greenorchardgroup.com/how-to-identify-lead-paint-in-your-home-the-5-steps/

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