Lead-based Paint in San Antonio houses? (Austin, Bowie: crime, inspections, income)

[anjalidatta]

Hi,
We are moving to San Antonio from Austin and have been looking at houses within the 410 loop. Most of these houses are at least 50 years old and so may have lead-based paint. We are trying to start a family and I am concerned about lead poisoning. But, there are obviously plenty of people with kids living in these areas, so I'd like to hear your opinions on this subject. What should we look out for? What questions should we ask?

Thanks,
Anjali

[Bo]

All house paint 50 years ago had lead in it. People back then didn't know it was a problem.

Lead paint remediation is hugely expensive. I know someone who spent over $20K having every painted surface in her old home carefully stripped down to the bare wood and repainted by workers who sealed the rooms in plastic and wore respirators. My guess is that very few homes you look at of that age will have had that kind of thorough remediation work done because of the cost.

[kevcrawford]

If the home is built before 1978, it will require a lead based paint addendum to go with the property. That will state if the seller knows of any lead paint in the home. The vast majority have been painted over and completely sealed or had remediation. They're required by law to disclose what they know, so you can look at those disclosures, have your inspections and decide if it's right for you.

[hadleyzoo]

Well, having lived in military housing most of my life and most of it being extremely outdated and some of them having lead paint, we just made sure to keep an eye on any chips, cracks, etc and touched up what we could to keep from having anymore chips, etc. If you can afford to have done what Bowie's friend had done, then go for it. Otherwise, you'll just have to keep an eye on the babies and make sure you know what goes in their mouths.

[Chaka]

We live in a c.1880s historic house that's full of lead paint. Before we moved in we did a lot of stripping, but it wasn't complete. At this point we're working on windows - we remove the window completely and take it out to be stripped, then repaint with non-lead based paint. The windows that haven't been stripped we don't open for now. Windows are the biggest issue because the scraping of wood on wood = paint on paint scraping = lead dust.

Other places the problem is just chipping paint. If it's not chipping, it's not an issue. We do have a problem with chipping paint in some places and if we're not ready to take those pieces out to be stripped, we place tape over them for now. Eventually they'll all be taken out for stripping (doing so requires a lot of accessory work so we do it one room at a time). We have one room in our house entirely blocked off right now. The biggest one for us will be the baseboards, because we're not taking those off. Instead we'll just paint over to 'seal' in the lead paint. Again, not a big issue unless the paint is chipping.

We have a 22 month old. We're just careful not to do any sanding/scraping in the house, and we keep her out of the garage (work room). We seal up chipping paint where we can. I used to be a lot more paranoid about it, now I'm just cautious. I make sure there's no chipping paint and make sure she doesn't eat any and make sure she's not anywhere there's been lead dust.

All that said, we're in the renovation process, so exposure risks are higher than in most.

[fabailey]

You would never be able to get rid of all the lead paint for the simple fact that you would have to change the ac, or filter system of the house. As the years progress the paint may evaporate however it'll settle within the filtration system.

[BEE90]

Originally Posted by fabailey

You would never be able to get rid of all the lead paint for the simple fact that you would have to change the ac, or filter system of the house. As the years progress the paint may evaporate however it'll settle within the filtration system.

Can you please explain how cured paint evaporates?

[Paka]

Hey, LOTS of us grew up with lead based paint and did not have issues...I suppose watching for chips/chewing are the biggest concern...but none of our 6 kids ever chewed on the walls/woodwork, so I suppose it is not too uncommon to grow up without gnawing on the walls, lead or regular painted types.

[Chaka]

The main problem is in low-income housing which is typically not kept up = chipping paint. Lead paint itself isn't an issue unless it's eaten or turned to dust (like with painted windows scraping against each other).

[valleys_of_hills]

Originally Posted by Paka

Hey, LOTS of us grew up with lead based paint and did not have issues...I suppose watching for chips/chewing are the biggest concern...but none of our 6 kids ever chewed on the walls/woodwork, so I suppose it is not too uncommon to grow up without gnawing on the walls, lead or regular painted types.

Most lead poisoning doesn't come from ingesting paint chips. It comes from breathing invisible lead dust.
A lot of people grew up with lead based paint, and thousands of them ended up with serious mental and physical health problems. There is even research saying it may explain much of the rise in crime decades ago. Any amount of lead causes damage, including brain damage.