Paint containing lead is a major problem. If you reside or work in or even manage an old building, you may be wondering if the interior or exterior paint contains lead. Today’s blog will give you some information on how to determine if old paint contains lead.
Indications
Information on the history of the building is the best way to investigate the possibility of lead paint short of doing laboratory tests, which are the gold standard.
Building Age
There is a good chance that there is lead in some of the interior or exterior paint of any building built before 1976. The laws restricting lead in paint did not come into effect in Canada until 1976. Also, while paint manufacturers were asked to remove lead from paint in 1990, they were not required to do so.
Appearance
Look carefully at the paint in question. Do you see a chalky residue on top of the paint? Is there a lot of crackling or “alligatoring”? These are common indicators of lead paint.
Testing
If you suspect lead paint, the paint should be professionally tested in a laboratory. At home kits for testing are notoriously unreliable and also do not give you the lead amounts only a positive or negative result.
If the paint does contain lead, then professional abatement will be required. Flaking lead paint is a serious hazard. Ingesting these flakes, such as small children are prone to do, can have devastating medical consequences. For this reason, identifying lead paint, and then hiring professionals to get rid of it, is very important.
Enviro-Vac is one of the oldest privately owned environmental contractors in Canada. They offer full suite of services in hazardous materials abatement and decontamination including shrink- wrap containments and are available to work both small and large- scale projects across Canada. The head office is based in Surrey, BC.
If you have any questions about this article or would like to talk to us about hazardous materials abatement, decontamination or shrink-wrap solutions, please call us on our toll-free number, (888) 296-2499.
