Lead paint safety when painting an older home

Does this apply to your house?

EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Program covers homes, child care facilities and kindergartens built before 1978. If you don’t know when your home was built, EPA’s advice to do-it-yourselfers is that it is safest to assume the area you are working on has lead-based paint. Lead paint that is intact and not being disturbed is a different situation from paint you are about to sand.

What the RRP rule requires

• Contractors who do renovation, repair or painting work that disturbs paint in pre-1978 homes must be EPA- or state-certified firms, using certified renovators trained by an EPA-accredited provider.
• The rule applies to many kinds of paid work, including in-house maintenance staff and outside contractors.
• Renovator certification lasts three years with online refresher training or five years with hands-on training, according to EPA.
• If you hire a painter for an older house, ask to see the firm’s certification.

Small jobs, banned practices and the pamphlet

• Minor repair threshold. EPA says work that disturbs 6 sq ft or less of interior painted surface, or 20 sq ft or less of exterior painted surface, is minor repair and maintenance rather than a renovation under the rule, unless it uses a prohibited practice, replaces windows or demolishes painted surfaces.
• Prohibited practices. The work practice standard (40 CFR 745.85) prohibits open-flame burning or torching of painted surfaces, and high-speed machines (sanders, grinders, planers, blasters) unless they have shrouds or containment with a HEPA vacuum attachment; heat guns must stay below 1,100°F.
• Renovate Right. Before starting paid work, firms must give occupants EPA’s pamphlet “Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools”, and document that they did.
• Outside, 10 ft of plastic. For exterior work the same standard calls for plastic sheeting (or other disposable impermeable material) on the ground, extending 10 ft beyond the perimeter of the surfaces being worked on.

Those rules bind contractors, but they are a sensible pattern for your own work too: keep jobs small, never burn or power-sand old paint, and catch every chip on plastic.

The rule is aimed at people paid to do the work, but the dust is just as hazardous when you do it yourself. That is why EPA publishes separate guidance for do-it-yourselfers.

EPA’s precautions for do-it-yourselfers

Test first

EPA recommends hiring a certified lead inspector or risk assessor to test a pre-1978 home. Home test kits can screen a surface, but a certified inspection is the reliable answer.

Contain the work area

• Remove furniture, rugs, curtains, food and clothing from the work area until cleanup is done.
• Cover the floor with plastic sheeting, close and seal doors, and close windows.
• Turn off forced-air heating and air conditioning and cover the vents with plastic.

Keep the dust down

• Mist surfaces with water before sanding, scraping, drilling or cutting.
• Use power tools with HEPA-filtered vacuum attachments to capture dust at the source.
• If you use a heat gun, keep it below 1,100°F; follow the label on chemical strippers.
• Wear a disposable N-100 respirator, disposable coveralls, shoe covers, eye protection and gloves, and don’t eat, drink or smoke in the work area.

Clean up thoroughly

• Clean the work area at the end of each day.
• At the end, mop uncarpeted floors, clean walls with a HEPA vacuum or damp cloth, HEPA-vacuum the remaining surfaces, and wipe everything with wet disposable cloths until they come away clean.
• Seal waste in heavy plastic and check your local and state disposal rules.
• Optionally, hire a certified dust sampling technician to confirm the area is clean.

What it means for a typical paint job

Painting over sound, intact old paint after washing it doesn’t disturb it much; the hazard comes from the prep. Scraping flaking exterior paint, sanding glossy trim, stripping doors and windows, and opening walls are the jobs that need the precautions above. On a pre-1978 house exterior, scraping also drops chips into the soil around the foundation, where children play.

• Interior repaint: wash, then hand-sand only where needed after misting, and clean up with a HEPA vacuum. The paint quantities are the same as any room: how much paint for a 12x12 room.
• New primer over old paint: priming doesn’t need sanding unless the surface is glossy; a bonding primer can reduce the sanding. See how much primer for a 12x12 room.
• Exterior: lay plastic on the ground, mist and hand-scrape, and collect chips daily; dry power-sanding and pressure-washing old paint spread chips and dust. See how much paint for a 1,500 sq ft house exterior for the paint itself, and how much paint for a 1,000 sq ft house exterior for a smaller home.
• Old furniture and doors: stripping them is a lead job if the paint is old; a quick spray refresh over sound paint, as on how many cans of spray paint for a chair, avoids disturbing it.

Asbestos in old textures

A related hazard: EPA lists textured paints and patching compounds used on walls and ceilings among older products that may contain asbestos. Popcorn and other sprayed ceiling textures from before the 1980s should be tested before you scrape or sand them. Painting over sound texture doesn’t disturb it.

Where to read more

EPA’s RRP program pages and its do-it-yourself guidance are linked under Sources below. Many states run their own lead programs too; your state or local health department can tell you who certifies inspectors in your area.