I did lead abatement for several years in PA, what a pain in the as-, bunny suits, plastic, mask, paper work, blood work every few months, and constantly changing laws and regs.
I am with Capitalcity, until the EPA can come up with more intelligent regs such as capturing the lead at its source like Last Craftsman suggested,
I think they should pursue vacuum tools and or wet procedures for this purpose.
Also peel away, and or infra-red.
A containment shroud with a strong vacuum attached could be pressed against the wall and a glove fastened to the box could allow one to use a putty knife and or scraper to remove peeling paint. The entire surface in the containment area could even be dusted or washed before the containment shroud is moved to the next section. Preferably just dusted.
Realistically that would capture 99.99 % of any chips and particles.
It would certainly capture 10 times more lead than is captured by simply scraping and collecting the chips after they have fallen.
I think 99.99% is good enough. That is probably a dozen times better than what used to be allowed into environment.
True progress requires realistic goals.
I am not even sure how necessary a fully contained shroud is. I would think a very strong one by two foot vacuum right under the scraping area would still capture close to 99% of all of the chips.
The weight of the device could be suspended from the roof, operated from a scaffold, or perhaps raised from the ground on it's own boom.
Once the containment shroud was moved, the section could even be immediately primed to lock in any potential lead exposed to the environment.
Resulting paint chip surface variation could just be ignored ( we often did this anyway to eliminate the lead dust from feathering the edges, and this also lowers prep cost. Most of the time paint chips completely disappear when the house is viewed from the street ), or elastomeric patching compound could be applied in the area to either fill the chipped area completely, or create transitions that could then be lightly feathered out with a hepa equipped dustless sander.
Essentially you use the patching compound to create transitions inside the chip boundaries instead of sanding the transitions into several layers of paint.
This way when you are sanding, 99% of what you are sanding is patching compound, and you barely touch any paint, and the little amount that is touched is sucked up by the vacuum.
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With containment shrouds perhaps even mechanical means could be implemented at the surface and controlled from outside the shroud.
Certainly, simply removing loose chips creates far less small particles to deal with, but if the shroud was effective enough this could open up the possibility of using mechanical wire brushes inside the shroud that would be controlled from outside the shroud that could be pressed against the painted surface and very very quickly and easily remove loose paint.
This would actually DECREASE the difficulty of the labor for the operator since the paint removal was being done mechanically, and would easily offset any extra logistics associated with using the device.
Perhaps it could even cut scraping time in HALF. That would be something, to come with a method which captures 10 times more lead than old paint removal methods, but actually reduces the prep time and hence prep cost by half.
99.99% lead recaptured from the surface and half cost of removing paint with pre- RRP methods!
With the exception of detailed trim and difficult to reach areas, I think that is actually a realistic possibility.
It would mean contractors could tell consumers we are now recapturing 99.99% of all of the lead, and it now costs half as much to remove it as when standard procedure was to remove it manually.
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EPA if you read this: Just capture the lead
BEFORE it flies all over the place.
It is absolutely ridiculous to create a huge tent on the side of a house, then scatter lead ALL OVER the inside of the tent, the scaffolding, the tools, and the workers and then try to dismantle all of that rigging without a bunch of lead flying into the environment.
The scaffolding and or ladders etc. are covered in it. How does that get cleaned? Obviously the scaffolding and other tools are not disposable. I wouldn't even consider that much plastic "disposable" but apparantly the EPA who is out to protect the environment thinks it is great for the environment to fill up landfills with all that plastic.
Aren't they smart?
:yes:
Seriously the sheer genius of the problem solving methods implemented by the RRP regulations is mind boggling.
Even if the job only requires spreading plastic on the ground, all of the benefits of of capturing the removed paint at the source right when it is released STILL APPLY.
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Obviously the tools for these procedures don't currently exist. But I am sure there are a wide variety of simple vacuum designs that would accomplish the goal of capturing the paint at the source right when it is removed from the surface.
It would be effective to have this part of the prepping procedure become it's own trade. It would create specialists, who have the training, special vacuum equipment, booms if necessary, specialized rigging if necessary, who could roll up and complete the job very quickly.
This would actually relieve a lot of stress for painters, because not many people enjoy the paint removal process with all of the associated logistics, ESPECIALLY now that RRP regulations are in full effect.
And painters who didn't want to relinquish this part of their market could become certified and obtain the necessary equipment, and do the paint removal on their own jobs, and also operate that division as an independent business.
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I also am steering clear of lead jobs.
That is our plan for the first year at least. Let other people work out the kinks.
I think anything built before 1978 should be torn down
I love pre-1978 houses. Lets hope they figure out a reasonable procedure for removing paint from them.