4 ms·
A few years ago I bought a 90 year old house and it was an eye opening experience. My state has fairly strict lead laws and a lead paint test is required if yo
by k2enemy 5y ago
A few years ago I bought a 90 year old house and it was an eye opening experience.
My state has fairly strict lead laws and a lead paint test is required if you purchase a house built before a certain date and have children below a certain age. But I only knew that because I carefully read all paperwork in the process. No realtor mentioned it, but begrudgingly agreed when asked about it. None of my friends with kids had done a lead test when they purchased homes built before the cutoff date. Many of whom have gone on to do renovations.
So I get the lead test (independent lead testing company as required by state law) and many painted wooden surface had lead paint at the base layer (but not the top). The required mediation was for all lead paint to be removed from friction surfaces and windowsills, and all other surfaces needed intact paint over the lead paint.
It cost $40k for the remediation and they did an absolutely horrible job. Zero common sense. It didn't fit the letter of the law or spirit of the law. The house would have been hardly safer than before mediation. Yet it passed independent inspection with no problem. I had to fight hard to get the remediation company to come back and fix the sloppy work. It took almost $60k and delayed moving in to the house for four months.
I came away from the experience convinced that the lead remediation operations in my area are a racket. The inspectors don't care. The remediators don't care. And I only know one other family that even bothered to do the required testing when they bought their house. And this is in a fairly affluent area. So it does not surprise me that we have a lead poisoning problem.
- sokoloff 5y agoThere's a reason people avoid the testing. It's because the remediation companies are a racket and the fact of learning you have lead in the house is value destructive way beyond the value gained from the knowledge. My house was built in 1926. I'm sure it had lead paint. The windows have all been replaced with (crappy) vinyl windows. If that wasn't the case, we'd have done it, but otherwise, I had no intention to perform any testing for lead paint.
- nate_meurer 5y agoSloppy remediation can make the problem worse. Can you talk more about the work they did on your house?
- k2enemy 5y agoThey set up admittedly impressive environmental controls. Everything covered in plastic and sealed with positive pressure in the house. But the actual carpentry work was a joke. Hacking away at the friction surfaces with a coarse grit power sander and leaving everything chewed up with some paint in the deep areas. The areas that didn't need to be removed but just left "intact" were peeling and crumbling all over the place. They would scrape a little paint off of a surface leaving paint edges raised off the wood where they would crumble at the slightest touch. Here are some photos of their "finished" work... https://i.postimg.cc/hf6c4VTZ/IMG-0542.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/hf6c4VTZ/IMG-0542.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Lgs25Txw/IMG-0544.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Lgs25Txw/IMG-0544.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/vccGd0g6/IMG-0546.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/vccGd0g6/IMG-0546.jpg
- nate_meurer 5y agoThat sucks. Might be worth calling the city again to alert them to the incomplete remediation. Might not do anything, but it can't hurt.