Lead Poisoning: How to Avoid It When Remodeling Your Homes
Homes built before 1978 would have the most lead paint issues, considering how popular they were at that point.
But the growing health concerns related to lead paints have led to a drastic reduction in their usage with time. Now when you work with old homes, there are chances you will come across lead paint. In order to ensure no one gets poisoned during the remodeling process, there are a few steps you can take.
Make sure you read through to the end to avoid getting poisoned!
Let’s go…
1) Test Out the Paint
You got to know what you’re dealing with before taking any steps further.
It is always better to understand the type of paint you have at hand to deal with. This ensures you are able to make the best plan of defense against it. Lead paint, if not dealt with properly, will lead to multiple health issues that no one wants to deal with.
Hence, in order to protect everyone around you, it’s better to understand and know what you’re up against.
2) Bye-Bye Carpets
The threads are breeding grounds for any kind of dust that gets trapped, just get rid of them.
Before you start tearing down things, you want to get rid of as much furniture and carpet as possible. Just remove everything possible in the room that can be moved. The fewer things there are in the room at the risk of getting exposed, the less cleaning you will have to do. If the carpets or any such thing absorbs the fumes and dust, cleaning them out wouldn’t be an option.
You want to salvage as many of the carpets and furniture beforehand.
3) Replace Whatever is Possible
You cannot always go removing paint from everything, sometimes the better option is to replace them all.
Be it the doors, the windows, or the trims around the house, you cannot go removing paint from everything. Sometimes you just want to avoid the lead paint issues by just tearing things apart and adding new ones. The replaced components don’t have to be decorated with paint, which saves you a lot of time and effort altogether. Just fasten the whole process by finding the best replacements for everything.
You’re upgrading anyway, so just upgrade from paint dependent things around the house.
4) Plastic Things Up!
Not everything can be removed, so you got to cover them up!
Just make sure any of the furniture left in the room is a burrito wrapped in plastic, and there is no way the residue can get into them. This would make it easier for you to clean them up later on. Plus, since they wouldn’t have absorbed anything, you wouldn’t be exposed to lead paint later on. The more protected everything is, the better it is for you.
When you can avoid the exposure in one way or the other, just go for it.
5) Air It Out!
At the end of the day, you have to let the fresh air in.
Throughout the day, and especially at the end of the working day, you want to open up the windows and air the room out. This ensures that the air gets cleaned out and that when you step into it next, most of the fumes have subsided. The more a room stays closed, the more lead paint issues you are likely to face.
So just leave the window open on your way out of the room and ensure everyone gets a breath of fresh air.
Wrapping Up!
Lead paint is a concern for many, but its use has died down significantly, so we wouldn’t be seeing a rise in it anymore.
You do have to ensure that you take the points we have mentioned above into consideration when dealing with lead paint. This will help you get things done without having to expose yourself to any kind of danger. Its small steps to ensuring safety for everyone in the house and the people working on remodeling.
What is, according to you, the best way to protect yourself from lead paint? Let us know in the comments below.