Skip to main content
added 1652 characters in body
Source Link
Harper - Reinstate Monica
  • 309.7k
  • 27
  • 294
  • 760

Shut off all ventilation.

Mask up (Where will the average person find a mask? LOL)

Vacuum like a madman (a HEPA vacuum is a good choice).

Get very clean water and very clean rags/towels, and wipe down the ceiling and all the walls. No need to scrub, just a light wipe to pick up any dust. "Very Note the the "very clean" doesn't matterisn't relevant to picking up the lead cleanup;(dirty rags would work); it's just that matte or satin walls tend to be easily marred by dirt, so keep the rags cleanyour walls looking nice.

VacuumWait for the house to dry out. Vacuum again just for good measure.

Wash everything in the regular washer. The wash water can go down the drain, no need to involve EPA.

Lastly... the most important part... Don't worry about it. You've got essentially all of it that is mobile. Some people react like all mildly toxic things are frickin' plutonium. It's lead, not plutonium.

(heck even plutonium isn't frickin' plutonium lol, unless it's heavily contaminated with Pu240 or Pu241, then, yeah.)

Why is it a big deal? (or to be more precise, why isn't it a bigger deal?) Because humans tend to have "one gear" when it comes to responding to toxins in the home. That one gear is "everything's plutonium". We've seen people call in hazmat response teams over a broken CFL light (we've even seen busybodies in city government encourage that). Several times a year on this very forum, people lose their minds over hardboard asbestos (while thinking nothing of the Roundup in their garage). Because hey -- asbestos has a lot of really bad press (thanks to lawyers and trust funds), and Roundup has a bunch of glowing adverts saying how awesome it is. And that, my friends, is the basis of most people's "scientific" knowledge.

The real threat, is not the lead. It's the social impediments to collecting accurate data about actual risk. Lead is a danger in a particular way: Research found that tenement buildings (whose occupants were tenants) tended to have peeling paint. And children tended to eat that paint where it was left peeling, because it's a little bit sweet, and they were often under-nourished also. This was resulting in poor children being affected by lead poisoning, where rich children were not - they kept their houses tip-top. Read the literature if you are interested, there's a great deal more to it.

The very fact that you are remodeling shows that you're not in the "deteriorating house, peeling paint" scenario which was the cause of the trouble. Your goal is to stop ingestion of the paint (via eating or breathing). What I described above will certainly take care of that!

Shut off all ventilation.

Mask up (Where will the average person find a mask? LOL)

Vacuum like a madman (a HEPA vacuum is a good choice).

Get very clean water and very clean rags/towels, and wipe down the ceiling and all the walls. No need to scrub, just a light wipe to pick up any dust. "Very clean" doesn't matter to the lead cleanup; it's just that matte or satin walls tend to be easily marred by dirt, so keep the rags clean.

Vacuum again just for good measure.

Wash everything in the regular washer. The wash water can go down the drain, no need to involve EPA.

Lastly... the most important part... Don't worry about it. You've got essentially all of it that is mobile. Some people react like all mildly toxic things are frickin' plutonium. It's lead, not plutonium.

(heck even plutonium isn't frickin' plutonium lol, unless it's heavily contaminated with Pu240 or Pu241, then, yeah.)

Shut off all ventilation.

Mask up (Where will the average person find a mask? LOL)

Vacuum like a madman (a HEPA vacuum is a good choice).

Get very clean water and very clean rags/towels, and wipe down the ceiling and all the walls. No need to scrub, just a light wipe to pick up any dust. Note the the "very clean" isn't relevant to picking up the lead (dirty rags would work); it's just to keep your walls looking nice.

Wait for the house to dry out. Vacuum again just for good measure.

Wash everything in the regular washer. The wash water can go down the drain, no need to involve EPA.

Lastly... the most important part... Don't worry about it. You've got essentially all of it that is mobile. Some people react like all mildly toxic things are frickin' plutonium. It's lead, not plutonium.

(heck even plutonium isn't frickin' plutonium lol, unless it's heavily contaminated with Pu240 or Pu241, then, yeah.)

Why is it a big deal? (or to be more precise, why isn't it a bigger deal?) Because humans tend to have "one gear" when it comes to responding to toxins in the home. That one gear is "everything's plutonium". We've seen people call in hazmat response teams over a broken CFL light (we've even seen busybodies in city government encourage that). Several times a year on this very forum, people lose their minds over hardboard asbestos (while thinking nothing of the Roundup in their garage). Because hey -- asbestos has a lot of really bad press (thanks to lawyers and trust funds), and Roundup has a bunch of glowing adverts saying how awesome it is. And that, my friends, is the basis of most people's "scientific" knowledge.

The real threat, is not the lead. It's the social impediments to collecting accurate data about actual risk. Lead is a danger in a particular way: Research found that tenement buildings (whose occupants were tenants) tended to have peeling paint. And children tended to eat that paint where it was left peeling, because it's a little bit sweet, and they were often under-nourished also. This was resulting in poor children being affected by lead poisoning, where rich children were not - they kept their houses tip-top. Read the literature if you are interested, there's a great deal more to it.

The very fact that you are remodeling shows that you're not in the "deteriorating house, peeling paint" scenario which was the cause of the trouble. Your goal is to stop ingestion of the paint (via eating or breathing). What I described above will certainly take care of that!

Source Link
Harper - Reinstate Monica
  • 309.7k
  • 27
  • 294
  • 760

Shut off all ventilation.

Mask up (Where will the average person find a mask? LOL)

Vacuum like a madman (a HEPA vacuum is a good choice).

Get very clean water and very clean rags/towels, and wipe down the ceiling and all the walls. No need to scrub, just a light wipe to pick up any dust. "Very clean" doesn't matter to the lead cleanup; it's just that matte or satin walls tend to be easily marred by dirt, so keep the rags clean.

Vacuum again just for good measure.

Wash everything in the regular washer. The wash water can go down the drain, no need to involve EPA.

Lastly... the most important part... Don't worry about it. You've got essentially all of it that is mobile. Some people react like all mildly toxic things are frickin' plutonium. It's lead, not plutonium.

(heck even plutonium isn't frickin' plutonium lol, unless it's heavily contaminated with Pu240 or Pu241, then, yeah.)