I recently wrote a blog post where I suggested that home-buyers consider going beyond the basic home inspection and test for some invisible health hazards. As I said in the post, my pregnant clients and friends (and their keen sense of health threats) have alerted me to the fact that many of the real dangers of a home are hiding inside the walls, under the roof, or being blown invisibly into the air through the vents. Considering the basic home inspection is “just an objective visual examination of the house,” it will not uncover whether or not the following may be in your future home:
- Lead paint or lead pipes
- Toxic mold
- Radon
- Asbestos
- Formaldehyde
- Carbon monoxide
- Unsafe drinking water
- Unwelcome pests like termites or disease-carrying mice
In this post I will discuss the biggest concern that my pregnant clients had: lead.
Any house built before 1978 is likely to contain lead paint unless previous owners have already removed it. The good news is that a test for lead paint is incredibly simple, cheap, and quick. You can pick up a kit like these 3M™ LeadCheck™ Swabs for around $10. A slightly more expensive option is to send paint samples off to a lab for analysis—something you can either do yourself or hire a certified lead inspector for more thorough testing.
The bad news is that the remediation for lead paint can be quite labor intensive, which is exactly why it is important to know whether or not the house you might buy has lead paint. I've known many people to buy a house only to figure out afterward there is lead paint. At that point they discover it will be many, many hours of work or an unexpected cost they didn't factor into the price of the house.
Finding out if there is lead paint before you buy a house and deciding how you are going to deal with it is critical if you want to be a prepared, informed buyer. Don't panic if you want to make a bid on a house and haven't had a chance to do testing because as home-buyer you have the right to a 10-day period to conduct a paint inspection or risk assessment for lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is a great resource on this topic. According to their website, you should consider testing for lead if there are children in your home and...
- Your house was built before 1978
- Your house is near a freeway or busy roadway where leaded gasoline and its exhaust may have polluted the soil with lead
- Your house has peeling or chipping paint
- Your house has bare soil in the yard where children play
- You plan to repaint, remodel or renovate the house
- A child living in the house has had a blood lead test result indicating lead exposure
- Your house was built before 1950 -- such homes almost always have some lead-based paint
- Window frames and sills
- Doors, door jambs and thresholds
- Trim and siding
- Kitchen cabinets
- Painted children's furniture
- Baseboards
Why should I test for lead?
When ingested or inhaled, the effects of lead on a developing nervous system can range from mild behavioral problems to severe brain damage. Children under 6 are the most vulnerable because their nervous system is still developing. And because lead crosses the placenta, pregnant women need to be especially careful.
I don’t like being an alarmist, but I do think this is a serious problem and incredibly important to prevent. Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) show that 6% of all children ages 1-2 years and 11% of black (non-Hispanic) children ages 1-5 years have blood lead levels in the toxic range.
What is a safe amount?
I've spoken with a range of experts, from pediatricians to the poison control staff of the CDC and they have all given profoundly different answers. The environmental testing agency I spoke with, for instance, said 99% of the problem is from kids and pets eating lead paint chips--something they find tasty due to its supposed sweet flavor.
On the other hand, the National Safety Council reports that “All it takes is the lead dust equivalent of a single grain of salt for a child to register an elevated blood lead level.” Under this assumption, you would need to be very concerned about even opening and closing a window with lead paint as there is inevitably some paint dust that would come off.
I'm sorry I can't give you a more clear answer about how much lead is too much, so again I'm going to follow the cautious advice of a pregnant woman and assume that a little is too much.
So what do you do if you find lead in your dream home?
You basically have three options: paint over it, remove it, or remove it and paint over it. The CDPH has good information regarding what the next steps should be to remediate the problem if you decide to buy a home with lead paint.
*I also advise testing for lead in the water of any house. Like testing for lead paint, you can get a simple kit starting at around $10. (Although, like with lead paint, a more accurate result that will show you exact levels can be obtained by sending a sample to a lab—something that usually only costs around $30).
If you have any other questions, or want to share your story, please reply to this post or contact me via my website at www.americasells.com or on Twitter @AmericaFoy.
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