I don't know what to do now. I've picked up most of the paint chips and the scraping is done. I'm new and ignorant and I messed up. I didn't realize lead paint was as bad as it is.

I scraped quite a lot of paint off the house, although it's not the biggest project. Should I go get tested for lead poisoning?

You’re fine. Lead poisoning in adults from one project is HIGHLY unlikely. Occupational over-exposure is typically the only way to get lead poisoning from paint chips as an adult.

However, children 6 and under are the at-risk demographic (and pregnant women), should not be allowed to ingest chips, or be exposed to airborne dust, etc...

 

Thank you for bringing me back down to earth lol. As far as clean up goes, I'm vacuuming up as much as I can, but there's still tiny pieces. How much should I be concerned with lead contamination? Is this dangerous for occupants of the home?

 

Holland already answered your last question. Paint chips, unless ingested, are not as dangerous as airborne dust. If you didn't do a bunch of sanding then you should be ok. Are there little kids on the property? How old is the house? Did you confirm lead with a test? Either way, when doing extensive prep, you should have plastic a minimum of 8 feet out from the wall.

 

It's 1940s definitely lead paint (original paint and siding under one previous layer of latex paint) and the couple is older with a son in his late 20s living with them. I did no sanding, just scraping. I'm taking the RRP class next month so in the future I'll definitely be using plastic 8ft out. I'm new in business (1 year), been painting for 6 years and had a previous employer (had his RRP) who treated lead paint jobs like regular exterior repaints. Hence my lack of taking lead paint seriously until I did some more research after the fact.

 

If an inspector sees you, you may be fk'd. You are supposed to have an EPA lead handling license and documentation. Depending where you live and how far they take it, they will make you remove 6-12" of soil, then replace it. And of course you are on the hook for all the costs. Lesson learned, a. test beforehand b. lead, pretty much say no c. know how to protect yourself and client and do it right.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I figured as much. I guess all I can do is just hope and pray at this point. I spent all day vacuuming the top layer of dirt and got all the paint chips cleaned up with a HEPA vac. I'm not going anywhere near a lead house ever again. Even after taking the RRP class.

 

I just finished renewing my license a month ago. I feel whether you work on lead projects or not, in our field, it is worth taking the class so you understand the potential hazards and risks to yourself, employees, and customers. NO level of lead in your blood stream is healthy, although it is true that as an adult, a small amount of exposure is not going to have much of an impact like it will on young children and the elderly. If you don't feel sick, I would imagine any exposure you had would be quite minor and your body will naturally flush it out. The bigger concern is the contamination to the soil and area. You did the right thing by removing as much as possible, but if anything happens in the future related to lead, you are still on the hook. I would just make sure the site is as clean as possible, get it painted, and move on. When I started in 1991, lead was being talked about, but there were no classes or much help to address it, and no one that I could see was really doing anything differently. I am sure I scraped and sanded plenty of lead houses with just an N95 dust mask on as my only protection and I never felt sick. Some days, in the middle of summer when it was hot, the dust would stick all over us because of the sweat. I also don't ever recall doing any type of work like that that happened to have young kids around. According to the instructor, back then, 15 micrograms of lead in a child was considered severe poisoning. Today, severe is 5 micrograms. I would just also point out that any drops you used around the house to collect chips while you worked are considered contaminated. DO NOT bring them to another job, otherwise you risk contaminating someone else's property. Probably a small risk, but the cost of replacing the drops will be far less than the cost associated with a lead issue.
Just as a side story, since you scraped, odds of contaminating the neighbor's property are probably pretty slim unless the houses are on top of each other. We were working on a job a few years back and the contractor next door was old school disc sanding an obvious lead house, and then using a leaf blower to blow the dust off everything. He contaminated the whole neighborhood. You could see the plume of dust wafting across the street going everywhere. I didn't want to be the guy to report him to the authorities, but I did mention it to the homeowner who had kids in case they were concerned. He just shrugged like it was nothing, so nothing happened.

 

I just finished renewing my license a month ago. I feel whether you work on lead projects or not, in our field, it is worth taking the class so you understand the potential hazards and risks to yourself, employees, and customers. NO level of lead in your blood stream is healthy, although it is true that as an adult, a small amount of exposure is not going to have much of an impact like it will on young children and the elderly. If you don't feel sick, I would imagine any exposure you had would be quite minor and your body will naturally flush it out. The bigger concern is the contamination to the soil and area. You did the right thing by removing as much as possible, but if anything happens in the future related to lead, you are still on the hook. I would just make sure the site is as clean as possible, get it painted, and move on. When I started in 1991, lead was being talked about, but there were no classes or much help to address it, and no one that I could see was really doing anything differently. I am sure I scraped and sanded plenty of lead houses with just an N95 dust mask on as my only protection and I never felt sick. Some days, in the middle of summer when it was hot, the dust would stick all over us because of the sweat. I also don't ever recall doing any type of work like that that happened to have young kids around. According to the instructor, back then, 15 micrograms of lead in a child was considered severe poisoning. Today, severe is 5 micrograms. I would just also point out that any drops you used around the house to collect chips while you worked are considered contaminated. DO NOT bring them to another job, otherwise you risk contaminating someone else's property. Probably a small risk, but the cost of replacing the drops will be far less than the cost associated with a lead issue.
Just as a side story, since you scraped, odds of contaminating the neighbor's property are probably pretty slim unless the houses are on top of each other. We were working on a job a few years back and the contractor next door was old school disc sanding an obvious lead house, and then using a leaf blower to blow the dust off everything. He contaminated the whole neighborhood. You could see the plume of dust wafting across the street going everywhere. I didn't want to be the guy to report him to the authorities, but I did mention it to the homeowner who had kids in case they were concerned. He just shrugged like it was nothing, so nothing happened.

Yeah I'm definitely taking the RRP class asap. It was painted previously and after digging down about 2 inches there's tiny paint chips everywhere so the damage was already done previously. I cleaned the site as good as I could and moved on. The EPA loves to scare the hell out of you with how they communicate the information. It took me a few weeks of talking to people here and around town to realize it wasn't like breathing in literal plutonium.

Definite learning experience which I have actually internalized though. It's funny, I see obvious lead houses being remodeled all around town now. Whether they're painting or tearing off the old siding, 95% of the sites I've seen aren't putting plastic down with PPE. If I get fined one day I'm okay with that. Mistakes have consequences🤷‍♂️. I'm just happy I won't have to make the same mistake again.

 

However, children 6 and under are the at-risk demographic (and pregnant women), should not be allowed to ingest chips, or be exposed to airborne dust, etc...

 

I run into a lot of lead paint on old furniture and doors. The only reasonably safe way to remove it is with a chemical stripper. Scraping sends tiny bits of it flying all around and even with plastic down, it gets carried on the wind, on your clothes and shoes. In my case, some usually ends up hitching a ride in my hair. Even if you don't eat the flakes, make sure you don't plant anything edible close to the house, so that you don't get it second hand from your prize tomatoes. Sanding just turns it into toxic dust. Heat gun turns it into toxic vapor. Steam works some times if it's something small enough to bag up and steam the stuff loose.

The big problem with lead is that since your body can't purge it out very fast, if you continue to be exposed to it, it builds up over time. If you're ever concerned about it, your doc can do a simple blood test to see how bad your cumulative exposure is. The funny thing is that almost everyone has had some exposure to it. It might not even be from what you think. Two really common household items - cheap dinner ware and cheap mini blinds - are some of the most common sources of lead exposure.