Lead Paint Removal and Indoor Air Quality

For parents of young children there is not much as frightening as the presence of lead paint in the home.  On the one hand research seems to show that keeping the lead encapsulated with a high quality paint should be sufficient to keep lead out of the indoor environment and out of our children's bodies.  However we were faced with lead paint in our upstairs bedrooms windows including my 4 year old son and pregnant wife.  With the Summer months winding down, we really wanted to remove the health threat and be able to open our windows without fear of the particles of lead dust and flaking payment covering our living environment.

Expert lead remediation was out of the question, and as a frequent do-it-yourselfer I felt like I could tackle the job along with an experienced carpenter.  The first step is to figure out exactly what we were dealing with.  A home lead test kit confirmed our suspicions, that there was indeed a couple layers of lead paint underneath the chipping and flaking white paint on and around our windows.  A lead test by our pediatrician came up negative, easing our minds of any worry over the existing situation, however being able to get fresh air into the house and increasing the resale value of our home made us take seriously the timing of the task at hand.

So I sent them to my mother in laws for four days and set up the garage for some serious labor intensive work.  Our goal was to keep the dust down to a minimum in the house. A trip to the hardware store was the start to a grueling 4 days for me.  Materials:

10 sheets of 6mil plastic sheeting
3 rolls of blue tape, the quick peel type that doesn't take off paint
4 bottles of some eco friendly paint stripper (about 1/2 a bottle per window)
2 high quality scrapers, many stiff scouring type sponges, 2 stiff wire brushes, heavy grit sandpaper
Big and small brushes
high quality lead covering paint
contractor bags for debris
shop vac with HEPA filter
rag mop and bucket
rubber gloves
saw horses
face masks and respirator
replacement filters for our central air

Day 1

Remove anything soft or cloth from both rooms and cover everything possible with the plastic sheeting, taping up all items to keep the dust off.  The better you can protect everything from lead dust and paint chips the easier clean up will be.

The carpenter marked and disassembled the windows completely and took the bulk of the hardware out to the garage.  The garage was prepared by covering the floor and setting up the saw horses with fans exhausting out the windows.  Luckily my garage is detached from the house because the fumes were truly awful.

We set off a work space in the house to keep the dog and cats out and a "lead shoe" zone and a "sock zone".  Tracking lead paint and dust through the house would only extend cleanup time.  I've seen plastic shoe covers that would have been nice to have too.  Also fans out the windows to keep the fumes down in the house.  My wife is extremely sensitive even without being four months pregnant.

The day ended by covering all the pieces in the citrus based stripper.  The bottle said 2 - 24 hours but we were not in any rush to start with the scraping.  Do yourself a favor and stay somewhere else.

Day 2

How's the scraping?  Tough.  And hot.  But the garage work was not so bad at night and if you've got two people it makes it go much faster.  This is not a time to cut corners however and even though we waited about 15 hours to scrape the stripper, the stuff that had been on the longest was definitely easier than the beginning.  Keep your face and hands covered.

Working while standing is much easier but you might want a chair too.  We started on the inside stuff first because I wanted to give the rooms plenty of time to air out before my family got back, yikes! in 48 hours.

One thing I didn't do but would have if I had the time would be to do a second round of stripping and scraping on everything.  There were many layers of paint to go through and my hands were very sore.

The end of the day should be marked by cleaning up everything, tossing the plastic covering, closing any open containers and keeping all the fans going.  Do yourself a favor and stay somewhere else.

Day 3

New plastic on the floors and keep scraping out in the garage.  The inside work can be cleaned extremely well, starting at the top and working down.  Probably twice.  Then paint with the first coat and go help your friend in the garage.

If you are getting down to where you are seeing more wood then paint then you are doing fine.  This is also a good time to replace any windows with cracks and reglaze if necessary.  Every piece will need to be cleaned with the stiff sponge, sanded, wiped down with cloth, windows taped, and painted with the lead covering paint.  The sanding here is the most important part to keep contained as this is probably the most dangerous to your health.

Day 4

Toss the old plastic sheeting you used indoors. Put it all back together with a silicon weather stripping to keep the water out and seal all the cracks, and put the second coat of paint on everything.  This is where having a carpenter helping makes a big difference.  This reduces the chances of having more broken windows, damaged woodwork, he's got all the individual tools (like the nail gun, that's a big help). 

Clean up means throwing out all the sheeting.  By the way the best method is to roll over the edges towards the middle, carefully roll it up like a sleeping bag, and use the tape to wrap it up.  Put it in a bag immediately and get it out of there.  In my community there are no special laws about this kind of disposal.

Wipe down over all the doors and windows, any place dust can settle.  Then all the floors and hard furniture get a soft sweeping and a mopping.  And probably another one.  By now my family was nearly coming home and our biggest concern was the smell of the paint.  I got some paint on the floor and used mineral spirits which was pretty stinky.  The garage still stinks.  My hands and back are sore, I'm dehydrated and exhausted from working nights and sleeping on the couch.

Day 5

The smell is all gone, the furniture moved back into place, and last night I slept great in my own bed.  My family is back but my son does not fully appreciate how tired I am.  It sure is good to have a friend who is a carpenter.

These old houses can feel like a real pain sometimes, but I like it so much better than a newer home.  We had the windows open all night long.  I'm glad everything is back to normal.