Do you have any experience with the EPA RRP Lead Paint Rules & Regulations?

Like asbestos, “encapsulating” seems to be the cheapest way to deal with it. (paint over it.)
If you want to remove it there is a whole procedure for avoiding disbursement, protecting workers, clean up and waste disposal that is so complicated you need to hire environmental compliance experts to do the work.
If you want to do it yourself you might want to hire an industrial hygienist as a consultant.

@Judi Gave basically the same answer I would. Many people live in homes built before 1978. I would bet half of NY buildings were first built before 1978. I think the only people who might be very reluctant are people with young children, although their fear is unwarranted unless their children are eating paint of off the walls, but I can understand their hesitation. If the community has a lot of older houses, and it is a sought after community, it should be fine in terms of investment.

Thanks for your responses. Just to clarify, the regulation now REQUIRES all homes built before 1978 that have work done that involves cutting open a wall to follow those procedures. You used to be able to sign a waiver with the contractor allowing them to do the work without following those procedures, but that option expired this summer. Check out the link to the EPA’s website above to see the details.

Yeah, well, if you disturb the paint there is a fear of it being out in the air I would think. That is why Judi said to paint over. If you cut the wall, you can’t paint over, some of it will be exposed. If the trend is to renovate in the neighborhood, then I guess you have to consider the price you are paying, knowing you or the next owner would have to pay extra for a typical renovation.

I live in a 100 year old frame house. When we are scraping to repaint the exterior, we are required to tent the structure, the workers are required to wear masks. Drop-cloths must be used outside, and the scapings need to be shop vaccumed up at the end of each day. With the interior, any sanding or scraping must be done without children in the home, workers wear masks, seal off the area from the rest of the house, thorough clean up each day. Also, you cannot remove any linoleum or tile flooring; a new subfloor must be installed on top of it.

We have had incidents in the neighborhood where people started to scrape without masking, and neighbors called the city and they had to stop work until it was done professionally. With interior work, I’m not so sure how that would be enforced. I cannot imagine purchasers requesting certification of renovation work at the time of purchase. You are required to disclose the age of the house and that there may be lead paint present.

@BarnacleBill ” I cannot imagine purchasers requesting certification of renovation work at the time of purchase.”

I’m not so much worried about the seller doing any work the home, or any previous work that may have been done, more about how purchasing a pre-1978 home might affect my budget as repairs/maintenance issues crop up over time.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Do you have an idea of how much extra a job would cost to be in compliance vs. one done on a home built after 1978 for the same repair?

Great question, I’m not sure how many people have thought about the effect on home sales the RRP will have. I’m pretty sure that if you do the renovations yourselves, you do not have to comply with the work practices, although that’s a personal decision. On the contractor side, no matter how “big of a pain it is to be compliant,” they have to. It is now just part of their responsibilities and the new “norm.” It’s possible the costs associated with getting certified may be reflected in your costs, but it would be minimal.