How to Do a Lead Paint Test at Home
Before renovating your old home, you should test it for lead-based paint. Here’s how to run the test yourself and what to do with the results.
In the past, lead was added to paint to ensure durability: the more lead, the better the paint. The lead content in paint ranges from 10 to 50 percent. In the early 1950s, paint manufacturers began to use less lead, and in 1972 the federal government began regulating the lead content of paint and banned it altogether in 1978.
Lead paint is generally not hazardous when dry when adhering to walls, but it becomes hazardous when scraped off and swallowed or inhaled as dust. Lead is a highly toxic metal that can cause a range of health problems and neurological diseases. Children under the age of six are especially susceptible to it, since lead is easily absorbed by their systems and interferes with the development of their brains and organs. Pregnant women are also at risk as lead can escape from the placenta and poison the unborn fetus.
To allay concerns about lead paint in your home, you can hire a professional surveyor to provide a report on lead levels in and around your home. They can often check soil and dirt and give immediate results for lead stains with an X-ray fluorescent machine . However, a cheaper alternative is to do it yourself.
Test kit options
Instead of hiring a professional inspector, you can buy a DIY lead paint inspection kit for $ 20-40. There are only two widely available and approved by the EPA set: a set of test colors Klean-Strip D-Lead Paint and swabs to test for the maintenance of 3M lead .
Both kits use color-changing technology to produce easy-to-read results in just a few minutes. The Klean-Strip is more expensive but is EPA certified for testing both hard (wood trim) and soft (drywall) materials. Comparison with the color coding on the Klean-Strip set shows the increment in the amount of lead, while the 3M set shows only positive or negative results. The Klean-Strip kit has an expiration date, so be sure to check the expiration date before using it. There are strips included in the kit to make sure it is still valid.
The Klean-Strip Kit has everything you need for six test pieces, and the 3M Kit comes in packs of two, eight, and 48 on Amazon.
How to check your paint
To use the Klean-Strip kit shown above, start by using wipes to clean the surface of the target area and test instruments (razor blade and scoring instrument). Choose a spot behind the door or inside the closet to check, as you will not notice some paint is missing from the wall and are less likely to come off more in a low-traffic area. Attach the supplied paint chip grab card to the wall and use your scoring tool to start the cut just above the grapple card.
Then use a razor blade and remove the paint chips from the wall. You have to make sure and remove not only the paint from the surface, but all layers below, as the house may have been repainted with lead-free paint many times.
This set requires a combination of two solutions. Cut a piece of paint into about four small pieces and toss them into number one solution. Shake solution number one for 10 seconds, then add five drops of solution number two and shake again for 10 seconds.
The solution will change color and you can measure your results using the easy-to-use color-coded viewer right on the bottle. If the solution is darker than the color being tested, chances are good that your paint contains lead. There is also another strip to add to the test solution.
This is a very simple test that only takes a few minutes.
Here’s a demo of how to use the 3M Lead Test Swab Kit:
Results in
If your lead paint test is negative, then you can green-light any remodeling plans without any problems and not worry about overall dust exposure.
If the test shows you have lead paint in your home, don’t panic, but make sure your contractors have received the additional training required to work in homes where lead may be present. You should also test all children in the home for lead exposure. This is a simple blood test that your pediatrician can do.
Do not try to remove lead paint yourself. Consider having your home checked again by a state or EPA certified risk assessor. They can provide more scientific evidence about the amount of lead in your home and make lifestyle recommendations based on their findings.