Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Buying a home before 1978, home inspection test, lead test, process to buy a 1970’s home, cost of home inspection, things to watch for when buying an older home
If you are worried about it perform a lead inspection. Out here it is about $250. The inspector comes out with his special machine. I do not recommend just the swab testing. You need the isotope machine gun thing that they use for accuracy.
The seller is not required to fix it, and I have yet to have a buyer ask. Buyers that have done lead testing with me are ones that plan to remodel. I STRONGLY encourage any buyer that wants to remodel a home pre-date to get the lead inspection. You want to make sure that lead precautions are used.
Lead paint was banned as of 1978 but it was already being phased out well before then. I have yet to see a 1970's home that has lead paint in it, but theoretically it could. If the home was built in the early 1900's I would count on lead paint being in there.
Please understand that if you are buying a turn of the century home that you would be asking them to remove original siding, trim and doors, which is where lead paint tends to be the worst. That is not realistic.
Yep, lead paint was not widely used in residential setting after the 1950's -- the odds of that paint being still adhering to any wood is pretty slim.
That said, it is out there. If you are buying an older place and you end up remodeling you could poison yourself, your family, the whole neighborhood. Nobody wants that. Pay the $250 to a inspector that knows how to use the right equipment to find the stuff.
If lead is found you NEED a remediation plan -- it can get crazy expensive, but you have options in most cases. One option is simply to make sure nothing is reachable by little ones, and no remodeling will disturb the stuff...
Thanks a lot you guys. My sister is buying a home and it was built in 1962. I think they are thinking about remodeling it..maybe it is something they consider before buying the house. I think that is why they want the house..Now tearing down wallpaper in such if the house has lead...that wouldn't be an issue right? It is more of knocking out walls and stuff like that?
Technically lead is a poison that can build up through ingestion or inhalation. Practically speaking babies are much more at risk than adults, as their small mass and rapidly growing nervous systems are most at risk.
If wall paper knocks off flakes of lead paint or even pulls off a residue of lead paint that sound be treated as a hazardouse waste. Of course a power sander or paint stripper than covers a whole area with a cloud of finely ground lead paint particles would be much worse.
Most testing will give most places an "all clear" -- if lead is found the standard protocol is full masks, disposible coveralls and hazardous waste bags for everything. HEPA vacuums can be rented too. Keep the kiddies out until everything is refinished with modern paints.
When we were in negotiations to buy our last house (a Victorian built in 1903), we asked about lead paint. The seller was a real estate attorney who had raised 3 very bright children in the house. He said-- virtually nudge, nudge, wink, winking the whole time-- that he didn't know if there was any lead in the house because it had never been tested. Local law said that once you tested and found it, you had to do something about it-- EXPENSIVE.
He basically was saying that any house built at that time was guaranteed to have lead paint in it, but as long as you didn't disturb it-- or the inspectors of it-- you were fine. Once it was on record that the house had lead paint, Pandora's Box was open.
In that locale, the don't-ask-don't-tell policy was understood by pretty much everyone. Once he clued us in, we decided not to ask.
Bottom line: Be familiar with local laws before you go digging for info you may not want. If you do move into the house, as long as the lead paint is covered with more recent paint and you don't disturb it, you should be fine. (Exception: Toddlers who chew on window ledges. But I'm quite paranoid about that stuff.)
Homes of that era primarily had lead paint on windows and trim-- but I did an inexpensive swab test on anything I interacted with, just to be on the safe side. (And other than on the window frames, never found anything.) Also, there are schools of thought that believe lead abatement when there's no active problem is worse than leaving the paint alone. Basically, if lead paint was banned in 1978, you've had 30 years of people covering it in coatings of safer paints. Hiring a bunch of people to remove all those safer layers to get to expose the dangerous stuff for removal is a little counterintuitive.
PS-- If you do end up with the house and decide to paint the interior, do a swab test. As much as everyone loves clean sharp edges-- DON'T SAND TRIM AND WINDOWS or any other surface where you get a positive swab test. Lead dust is just as bad, if not worse, than lead chips.
I grew up in old homes chock-full of lead paint, and I'm perfectly FINE, as are the other people I know who grew up in very old homes on the East Coast. I just wanted to rant about the lead certification racket in my state. I’m a lead-paint inspector and I have lead “certified” properties.
After spending hundreds on training classes, and seeing the process “at work” as it were, I see the entire Lead paint certification process as a waste of time and taxpayer money.
According to research, children with lead poisoning have usually been:
1. Undernourished
2. Exposed to lead dust (not by eating chips, which is apparently not common)
My parents cleaned and mopped the house and gave us vitamins and nutritious food to eat. Children who are vitamin deficient absorb lead instead of excreting it. A properly supplemented diet can prevent and treat (according to studies) excessive absorbption of lead.
In Maryland, I don't think it's a coincidence that the areas with the highest incidences of lead "poisoning" are the areas with the poorest children, Alleghany county and Baltimore City.
Lead Poisoning and Inadequate Nutrition
---------------------------------------------
In Baltimore, for instance the drug trade causes many poor mothers to sell their food stamps "2 for 1" so they can buy drugs instead of food for their children. The people I know who work in public health can tell even more horror stories.
Imagine a parent feeding a growing child regularly with cookies and blue "juice"! I don’t mean blue Koolaid, either, at least that has vitamins. Finding out about this stuff really makes me wonder why we even have food stamp programs! I wonder if it would make sense to just have feeding centers for the kids…
Lead exists in the air, soil and food we eat, by the way and is also still used in some industrial paints.
Keeping Kids Lead-safe
--------------------------
I think the EPA would do a great service by reducing the "scare" tactics and letting parents know how they can keep their children safe. I know I can't be the ONLY person who grew up in an old home. Proper nutrition and a clean environment can protect your child from a wide variety of environmental dangers, including lead.
But I guess the government doesn’t dole out grant money for common sense.
Sadly, in Baltimore some of the same "parents" the laws are intended to help, don't use them to increase their children's health. Instead they use the regulations as a way to game the system. A chipped spot of paint in an old apartment is automatically a reason to stop paying rent to many low-income tenants. It's turned into a joke IMO and yet ANOTHER waste of taxpayer money.
If you're really worried, but you want to buy an older house, I can send you some guidelines for testing and remediation. You don't need to pay a lot of money for testing. Also, be warned, lead in some older paint on your wall is ok, but if you start to remodel, sanding, stripping etc. can actually CAUSE dangerous levels of paint. So if you find a company that says they will “remove” the lead in your older home in this way, you may actually be causing a problem where none existed. If you plan to remodel or "remediate" cleanup and testing afterwards are key.
Buying an old home is not a reason to freak out. I'm sorry if I sound like a nut, but this topic is near and dear to my heart.
kinkytoes - no flaming, I'm with you on this one all the way! In my over half a century of stumbling around the newest house I've ever lived in was built in 1946. Even my college dorms were built in the 1920s. This place is a 1905 model and has some lead paint and -GASP - asbestos on the hot water heating pipes. So, why am I not dead? #1 - Leave the stuff alone. If you don't have to mess with it, don't mess with it! #2 - Encapsulate. And that doesn't take a PhD or fancy certification and training. Paint, coat, wrap, seal, etc. With a little research and care you can take care of most of this safety precaution yourself. #3 - If you are going to sand or otherwise have to disturb the stuff, block off the area properly, ventilate well, and wear an appropriate respirator.
Just be careful, don't take on a project larger than you should, and use your head.
Thanks a lot you guys. My sister is buying a home and it was built in 1962. I think they are thinking about remodeling it..maybe it is something they consider before buying the house. I think that is why they want the house..Now tearing down wallpaper in such if the house has lead...that wouldn't be an issue right? It is more of knocking out walls and stuff like that?
It depends on the paint under the wallpaper. I agree with others that the lead dust is a bigger problem than chips.
There is a lawsuit in process out here where a painter took a heat gun and vaporized the lead paint on an older home. Lead vapor and of course then lead dust was all over the home. The family got sick. The house had to be totally cleaned by the lead abatement teams.
I agree that common sense goes a long way. Do the lead testing with the lead machine. It will tell you if there is lead paint under the wallpaper. I can also tell you that my clients did a lead test last month and that inspector (who has been one forever) said it is very rare to find it on interior walls. They tended to make the paint differently for the walls of the home. Doors, trim, and the exterior siding are the most common. The siding tends to have the highest concentrations of lead paint he said.
Just get informed. I live in in a 1960's home and we tested clean when we bought it. We planned to do extensive remodeling and I have kids so I wanted to make sure we would have no lead dust around the house. Totally worth $250 for piece of mind.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
