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maiden
Whoa!
Member since 5/08 1814 total posts
Name:
T
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Professional Lead Testing?
I am reading that before you have any work done on a house that was built before 1978, you should have your house tested for lead because it may be in the paint. Has anyone done this professionally? I am curious about the cost, experience, and result.
TIA
ETA: I am thinking of testing for lead for 2 reasons: First, in the house we just bought, there is wallpaper underneath the some paint and you can see the seams. My MIL wants to sand it down so it is smooth, then paint over it. If there is lead paint, the dust will get everywhere. Second, we want to knock down a wall and remodel our kitchen. I know people remodel all the time without testing for lead, but it seems if you knock down walls or remodel with lead paint, the lead dust will get all over, no?
Message edited 1/30/2011 10:17:01 AM.
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Posted 1/29/11 8:49 PM  |
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Goobster
:)
Member since 5/07 27557 total posts
Name:
:)
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
Don't bother. If your house is older than 1978, you DO have lead paint in it. We ALL do.
Testing won't accomplish anything. And keep in mind if you test and DO confirm it's presence, you will have to tell future owners you have verified that you have lead paint. Just an FYI. Testing won't solve anything, as long as it's intact, and not eaten or major sanding done, it's little risk. We ALL grew up with lead paint in our homes and almost ALL of us STILL have it in our homes today.
Message edited 1/29/2011 11:36:01 PM.
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| Posted 1/29/11 11:06 PM |
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maiden
Whoa!
Member since 5/08 1814 total posts
Name:
T
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
Posted by Goobster
Don't bother. If your house is older than 1978, you DO have lead paint in it. We ALL do.
Testing won't accomplish anything. And keep in mind if you test and DO confirm it's presence, you will have to tell future owners you have verified that you have lead paint. Just an FYI. Testing won't solve anything, as long as it's intact, and not eaten or major sanding done, it's little risk. We ALL grew up with lead paint in our homes and almost ALL of us STILL have it in our homes today.
What about if you are having a wall knocked down or something like that?
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| Posted 1/30/11 9:44 AM |
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Nifheim
allo
Member since 1/09 5476 total posts
Name:
Jennifer
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
due to our assistance on the mortgage we had to get houses tested for lead paint in order to close. IT WAS A PAIN!!! They have test kids that are $30 you can do yourself and we did that with two 90 year old houses and of course they came up positive.
The house we closed on we did a swap and it came out negative so we had a professional guy come in since we needed the report to close.
We used this guy click here
If its not chipping (the paint) your okay if it is chipping then you need to scrape it and repaint it. Use masks and gloves and vacuum everywhere once your done. Its not going to be 100% but its the best you can do.
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| Posted 1/30/11 9:53 AM |
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Goobster
:)
Member since 5/07 27557 total posts
Name:
:)
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
Posted by maiden
Posted by Goobster
Don't bother. If your house is older than 1978, you DO have lead paint in it. We ALL do.
Testing won't accomplish anything. And keep in mind if you test and DO confirm it's presence, you will have to tell future owners you have verified that you have lead paint. Just an FYI. Testing won't solve anything, as long as it's intact, and not eaten or major sanding done, it's little risk. We ALL grew up with lead paint in our homes and almost ALL of us STILL have it in our homes today.
What about if you are having a wall knocked down or something like that?
Sure you run a risk of greater lead paint exposure/escaping. But that's any renovation in any home kwim? I am not saying you should not be concerned. You should and I would/was. That's why I limited my renovations and won't do them until my DD is older and not at risk.
If you knock down a wall, you can do things like seal off adjoining rooms with plastic and tape, to mimize spread of dust. But trust me, when you knock down walls, etc, dust keeps coming for a long time afterwards.
BTW, my ped, whom I trust with everytrhing, told me she has only seen elevated lead levels one time and that was a child who was EATING paint chips. And my ped is located in an area with VERY OLD homes, that people are always renovating. So my point is, yes you can spread lead dust by doing renovations but that's why you try to seal off other rooms, and keep children's items out of the area. Even better if you can do the renovations while NOT living in the home.
Message edited 1/30/2011 12:33:51 PM.
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| Posted 1/30/11 10:32 AM |
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Mrs213
????????
Member since 2/09 18986 total posts
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
The only way it's going to harm you really is if you eat the paint chips or you inhale a bunch of dust from sanding. If you want to sand something down and you think it's lead paint, you can buy masks that have hepa filters on them specifically for that kind of thing. If you are painting right over it then you don't even have to do that if you aren't sanding...
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| Posted 1/30/11 11:30 AM |
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05mommy09
Family of 5!
Member since 5/05 15364 total posts
Name:
<3 Mommy <3
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
Posted by Nifheim
due to our assistance on the mortgage we had to get houses tested for lead paint in order to close. IT WAS A PAIN!!! They have test kids that are $30 you can do yourself and we did that with two 90 year old houses and of course they came up positive.
The house we closed on we did a swap and it came out negative so we had a professional guy come in since we needed the report to close.
We used this guy click here
If its not chipping (the paint) your okay if it is chipping then you need to scrape it and repaint it. Use masks and gloves and vacuum everywhere once your done. Its not going to be 100% but its the best you can do.
We used the same company- I believe it was 100-150???
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| Posted 1/30/11 9:10 PM |
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Nifheim
allo
Member since 1/09 5476 total posts
Name:
Jennifer
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Re: Professional Lead Testing?
Yes! The guy was really cool he was so floored that we had no lead paint since the house hasn't been touched in decades actually probably since it was built.
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| Posted 1/31/11 9:47 AM |
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