4 ms·

> I would expect tenants to be proactive and organize to have lead removed in time, by their own means if necessary, Lead removal and/remediation is hard to do

by ekidd 8y ago

> I would expect tenants to be proactive and organize to have lead removed in time, by their own means if necessary, Lead removal and/remediation is hard to do safely. We looked into this when deciding whether to buy an older house, which had flaking lead paint in interior rooms. To avoid contaminating everything with lead dust, we would need to seal the area, control air pressure, keep surfaces damp, etc. We would need HEPA sanders and special training, among other things. We were told that it would cost us at least $18k to outsource, and that wouldn't cover the whole house. So I don't know how people living in subsidized housing can be expected to manage lead remediation without assistance. When the NYC Housing Authority was informed that tenants had extremely high levels of lead in their blood, and that independent tests showed high levels of lead in the apartment, they chose to deal with the problem by sending in their own testers, who said there was no lead. Given that pretty much every building constructed or repainted between the 40s and 1960 (in NY) has lead, I don't think the Housing Authority should be running its own tests. It certainly shouldn't be claiming to have run tests without actually having run them.

merpnderp 8y ago
Why remove the paint? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to replace the Sheetrock/plaster?
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Sheetrock, maybe, but I don't think those buildings (many of them constructed in the 1940's and 1950's) use sheetrock. Plaster, almost certainly not.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  Lead paint on the flats is less of an issue than lead paint on trim and windows. Trim because toddlers are down near there and some trim presents a nice target for an inquisitive mouth and windows because mechanical action tends to grind the paint, releasing lead dust which is slightly sweet. The trim is intricate to sand and also would be fairly labor intensive to completely replace as well. (Let's face it: all of this comes down to money...)
  - cobookman 8y ago
    Wouldn't replacing trim + windows. And painting over existing lead paint be good enough? Replacing trim can't be that labor intensive. Especially if your going to paint all the walls anyways
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      This costs thousands of dollars. It may be even hard to find a compatible window frame for such old building.
      - cobookman 8y ago
        Thousands is less than full removal of all the lead paint. """ According to the EPA, professional lead-based paint removal for the following three options costs about $8 to $15 per square foot or about $9,600 to $30,000 for a 1,200- to 2,000-sq. ft. house. The average removal project costs about $10,000. """ https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/lead-paint-removal/ https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/lead-pa...
        ekidd 8y ago
        As other posters have noted, one of the biggest sources of lead is window trim. Replacing windows in old buildings is also a serious renovation—for example, I know a landlord who paid about $15,000 to replace the windows in a 3000-sq. ft. duplex about 20 years ago. And that doesn't fix door trim, baseboards, or flaking walls. But more importantly, I've never met a landlord who'd let a tenant replace windows or sheetrock. And what tenant would spend $10,000+ renovating an apartment they don't own? Certainly this is not a viable solution for government-managed, low-income rental housing. A large landlord, on the other hand, can amortize the cost over multiple buildings and multiple years, and they can order correctly-fitted replacement windows in bulk. It makes no financial sense for low-income tenants to do expensive, piecemeal lead remediation. It's just another long-term maintenance cost, like replacing the linoleum floors, fixing the roof, or replacing the building furnace. (Of course, it sounds like the housing authority wasn't doing that reliably, either.)
Scaevolus 8y ago
We ran into the same issue in Seattle, where much of the housing stock was built before 1950. Unfortunately, many people like the look of the original double hung windows, which have been repainted many times over the years, so you end up with single-pane lead dust generators throughout the house.

by ekidd 8y ago

merpnderp 8y ago

Why remove the paint? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to replace the Sheetrock/plaster?

cimmanom 8y ago
Sheetrock, maybe, but I don't think those buildings (many of them constructed in the 1940's and 1950's) use sheetrock. Plaster, almost certainly not.
sokoloff 8y ago
Lead paint on the flats is less of an issue than lead paint on trim and windows. Trim because toddlers are down near there and some trim presents a nice target for an inquisitive mouth and windows because mechanical action tends to grind the paint, releasing lead dust which is slightly sweet. The trim is intricate to sand and also would be fairly labor intensive to completely replace as well. (Let's face it: all of this comes down to money...)
- cobookman 8y ago
  Wouldn't replacing trim + windows. And painting over existing lead paint be good enough? Replacing trim can't be that labor intensive. Especially if your going to paint all the walls anyways
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    This costs thousands of dollars. It may be even hard to find a compatible window frame for such old building.
    - cobookman 8y ago
      Thousands is less than full removal of all the lead paint. """ According to the EPA, professional lead-based paint removal for the following three options costs about $8 to $15 per square foot or about $9,600 to $30,000 for a 1,200- to 2,000-sq. ft. house. The average removal project costs about $10,000. """ https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/lead-paint-removal/ https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/lead-pa...
      - ekidd 8y ago
        As other posters have noted, one of the biggest sources of lead is window trim. Replacing windows in old buildings is also a serious renovation—for example, I know a landlord who paid about $15,000 to replace the windows in a 3000-sq. ft. duplex about 20 years ago. And that doesn't fix door trim, baseboards, or flaking walls. But more importantly, I've never met a landlord who'd let a tenant replace windows or sheetrock. And what tenant would spend $10,000+ renovating an apartment they don't own? Certainly this is not a viable solution for government-managed, low-income rental housing. A large landlord, on the other hand, can amortize the cost over multiple buildings and multiple years, and they can order correctly-fitted replacement windows in bulk. It makes no financial sense for low-income tenants to do expensive, piecemeal lead remediation. It's just another long-term maintenance cost, like replacing the linoleum floors, fixing the roof, or replacing the building furnace. (Of course, it sounds like the housing authority wasn't doing that reliably, either.)

Scaevolus 8y ago

We ran into the same issue in Seattle, where much of the housing stock was built before 1950. Unfortunately, many people like the look of the original double hung windows, which have been repainted many times over the years, so you end up with single-pane lead dust generators throughout the house.