Lead paint is poisonous
If you decide to heat gun old paint, it is likely to contain lead. Although it heat guns really well, when heat gunning lead based paint, lead vapour occurs which is harmful if inhaled. A safe practice is to assume all paint as lead based if it’s older than 1970.
You can buy lead paint test kits form paint shops, but be careful as these often have short expiry dates and can give false negatives. A safer practice is to scrape some paint samples and take them to a test laboratory – see your Yellow Pages, look under laboratories.
Bad practices in removing lead based paint cause a range of serious illnesses and even death. Don’t bypass the safety precautions.
Lead based paint safety precautions
An official set of guidelines can be downloaded from the NZ Government
- When heat gunning, you should wear a mask rated for metallic vapours. Most face masks are unsuitable. See our .
- Collect all paint scraps into a bin. Seal it dust tight and take it to the hazardous materials section at your local refuse station. Point out it contains lead based paint matter.
- Don’t sweep or vacuum if possible. This creates poisonous dust. Most vacuum cleaners don’t filter the air sufficiently and simply exhaust microscopic lead particles back into the room. Vacuum cleaners equipped with a HEPA filter are considered suitable.
- If possible, wet wipe up surfaces to clean up.
- Remove all children and pets from the area. Children are more susceptible to lead than adults. Dogs and cats are often the early casualties if lead paint is being stripped carelessly.
- If you’re pregnant, keep well away from all forms of lead paint stripping.
- Never drop lead paint waste outside in the garden. It turns to dust eventually and just works its way back into the house. Use drop sheets to collect everything.
- Never – Never sand lead based paint. The dust risk is bordering on stupidity.
If you want the safest way to strip paint, do it with paint stripper, this eliminates all the dust.
|
