Lead Paint Dangers in the Home

The (Short) Story of Lead Paint

Long, long before the EPA, ancient artists discovered that lead carbonate made a luxurious white paint that dried fast and had a superior finish. Lead white, as it came to be called, became a mainstay. Until the 19th century it was the only type of white paint used in European paintings. Since lead worked so well on canvases, construction crews figured why not use it on houses and buildings, too. And they did. In droves.

Weirdly, as far back as the Middle Ages, scribes had hinted that lead seemed to have some gnarly side effects. Prolonged exposure to lead paint drove artists to epileptic fits, the monks noted, and sometimes stopped their hearts. But the allure of the toxic alabaster pigment was too great. No one paid any attention — until 1786, when Ben Franklin wrote a whole letter documenting his suspicions about lead.

Old Ben’s letter is absolutely fascinating, and pretty scary, too.2 Franklin describes distilleries, printing houses, and drinking wells positively brimming with lead. But it’s also infuriating, considering that it wasn’t till another hundred years that world governments began to actually do something about it.

Germany sounded the alarm about lead paint first in 1886. France banned it completely in 1909. And across the Atlantic, in the Land of the Free?

Let’s just say we took our sweet time — thanks to persistent lobbying from the lead industry. Remember, it wasn’t until 1978 that we finally yanked lead paint off the shelves. By that time it was really too late to do anything. Lead was everywhere and it wasn’t going away.

The Problem With Lead

Lead paint presents a tricky problem for homeowners for a few reasons. One, even if you cover it up with successive coats of non-toxic paint, the lead remains underneath, perennially poisonous. When outer layers chip, as walls tend to do over time, the toxic inner layers are exposed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, lead paint chips are the perfect treats for toddlers because, wouldn’t you know it, lead is actually sweet, making it one of the worst hidden dangers for kids in your house.

But you vacuum all the time, you say, so you should be ok. Not so fast. As Ben Franklin observed over 200 years ago, dry lead paint chips leave behind dust. Invisible microparticles of lead dust waft up into the air, get on hands and clothes, and seep into our bodies. If lead is in the house, in other words, contamination is inevitable.

Safe to say, the results aren’t pleasant. The faintest traces of lead in the blood can reduce children’s IQs and attention spans. Prolonged exposure can be fatal.3 All of which is to say, if you’ve got your kids safety checklist handy, getting rid of lead-based paint in the house should be a top priority.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take. The first step is to find out if you’ve got lead in your house.

How to Tell If You’ve Got Lead Paint in Your Home

The EPA says that a whopping 87 percent of homes built before 1940 probably have lead in the walls. The good news is, that number drops to around 24 percent if your house was built between 1960 and 1978, when lead paint was banned.4 The average age for a home in the U.S., by the way, is 39 years, per the National Association of Homebuilders,5 dropping our odds of lead exposure considerably.

Still, if you’re like me, you’re not about to play Russian roulette with your children’s safety. You want to know if your home has lead paint. Here’s how to find out.

You’re Buying a Home Built Before 1978

By law, sellers have to tell you if there’s lead paint on the walls of a house you’re buying. This doesn’t mean they have to remove it, however, or even arrange an inspection. That’s on you. The law gives you 10 days to do this before signing. Read on for more about lead inspections.

You Live in a Home Built Before 1978

If you live in a pre-1978 home, you should assume you’re living with lead. Your best bet in this case is to arrange a professional inspection. A certified risk assessor will tell you if you have a lead problem, where the lead is (walls, water, and soil), and what to do about it. They’ll also tell you what procedures to follow if and when you renovate.

You may have seen or heard about home lead inspection kits that you can pick up at the hardware store. Probably not a great idea unless you have a degree in chemistry and really know your way around a gas mask. Even then, it’s a much better idea to hire a pro. It’s a one-off expense that will more than pay for itself in peace of mind.

How Much Do Lead Inspections Cost and How to Arrange One

Finding an EPA-accredited lead inspector in your area is pretty easy. Just visit the EPA’s website and enter your ZIP code.6 The EPA also cooperates with a number of certified labs in the National Lead Laboratory Accreditation Program (NLLAP) that will process the results.

Inspection fees vary by inspector and state. Additional soil and water testing can also drive up your bill. But an average inspection typically costs between $300-$400. The most you should expect to pay is $700-$800.

Final Thoughts

In the 1950s, when local governments started clamping down on lead paint, the lead lobby struck back hard. They blamed stupid parents and curious kids, and flat-out refused to slap a poison label on their poison paint buckets. They kept at it for another 30 years. Their legacy is that millions of houses throughout the country are coated in toxic paint.

However, today, the EPA has claws, with hundreds of resources for homeowners living through a renovation or lead clean-up, or moving into a house with lead paint on the walls.

If you fit any of those scenarios, take the safe and legal road and hire professionals to guide you through it. Because, as we saw as recently as 2015 in the tragedy of Flint, Michigan, even trace amounts of lead in our children’s bloodstreams can lead to irreversible neurological damage.