Flaking Lead Paint In An Unused Room: How Dangerous To Rest Of House?

LetItBeLEED

Alright already... I know the answer is "fix it properly". But there's a recession on, so help me out here please, folks....

A client recently bought a foreclosure home that was built in the 1850s. She plans to live in it with her family, including a baby. In its day it was elegant with 10 foot ceilings and every room had ornate detailed trim. The bad news is (A) my client bought this dog in the first place, (B) a lot of that painted trim is flaking badly, and (C) the inner layers test heavy for lead.

The place has hot water heating and no forced air AC.

My client proposes to keep family activities in just a few rooms at first, and to focus her abatement dollars there. That will leave other rooms essentially unused, but with open archways to the rest of the house. So the question is... will the flaking paint in those unused rooms put lead dust in the air just sitting there otherwise undisturbed?

Thanks,

RCPainting

Source

How Much Lead Does It Take?

Not very much ... The generally accepted definition of lead poisoning is:

No greater than 10 micro grams per deciliter of blood in children under 6.

Here's an easy way to visualize it.

- A deciliter is about 1/2 of a cup. (an infant has beetween 4-5 deciliters of blood)
- A packet of low calorie sweetener (pink or blue stuff) is 1 gram.
- There are one million micro grams in a gram.
- So, divide the contents of just one packet into a million piles.
- Now, discard them all but 10 "piles" of remaining dust.
- Mix the 10 micro grams into that half cup.

That's roughly how much lead it takes to poison a child. It is not a question of paint chips but rather paint dust. Obviously, body size and age play a role, but - as you can see - it doesn't take much!

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BobsLandscaping

Looks like theres grants available to help pay for the cost of lead abatement.

http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?...t=pr05-129.cfm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n15193825/

http://www.selfhelpinc.org/LeadProgram.html

Msargent

Take a short cut and she gets mad at you You are liable!!. One way or another she is going to pay inform her its in her childs best interest to do it right!. inform her of the grants availible.

kubie

i believe you are only liable for the project you are doing. say a window...your liable for any lead dust 3' each side of the window and 10' out

lead takes like 17 hrs for the dust to settle.

id have the HO buy a hepa vac and suck up the chips, along the basebaords and window sill and troughs. then buy the vac from the HO(your gonna need one anyway)
that way the HO cant say you gave her the vac and it didnt do a good job cleaning.

i would plastic off everything/room you are not working in and take pics. that way you wont be liable for dust or chips in any other rooms.

Msargent

In my area there is a local group that loans hepa vacs out, Because we have such a high number of lead houses and apartments.

LetItBeLEED

Thanks for all the good info, especially the scary definition of lead poisoning. I never really looked at that before and had no idea it was so little. Yikes! I'll tell my client I will not help her live in the place in any way shape or form until she decides to address the safety issue 100%. I mean, it's not like just dealing with ugly kitchen cabinets until there's money to re-face 'em.