Is Your Home Lead Safe? We hope you answered YES! to the above question! If not, please please please keep reading.
First, let’s see if your home or office is at risk with this 1 simple question: Was your home or office built before or during 1978? If you said yes, YOU ARE AT RISK! Let’s first discuss where lead is most likely in your home and why it is there.
Lead is primarily found in the paint of these buildings. It was used to help create certain colors of paint such a yellows, reds, and whites. Lead was also added as an ingredient to help maintain a shine for the paint when it dried, resist cracking and water damage, and help thin the paint out so a little paint could go a longer way. These are things we can all agree on are good reasons but you need to understand that science has come a long way since then and now we know better about the harmful side effects of this once great miracle ingredient.
How does the lead get into your body? Paint eventually does dry out and create dust and after many years or after damage it will chip. Kids are most at risk of lead exposure because of their curiosity of colors and new things and their animal instincts to put things in their mouth. Also, kids tend to play in all areas of the home and don’t generally try to avoid dusty corners. This makes pets at risk too. But just because you may be an adult, you are still at risk of lead poisoning.
How can lead affect your family’s health? Lead can be responsible for a number of things. According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services,
Lead exposure in young children can cause reduced IQ and attention span, learning disabilities, developmental delays, and a range of other health and behavioral effects.
Not to mention it can cause a type of anemia that can impact your health if left undetected or untreated. This list does not include all of the negative effects, it is just a short list. Please consult the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for more information. You can find a link to their website at the bottom of this article.
How can you avoid exposure? First, find out when your house was built and/or painted. You can ask your contractor to send in a sample to test if your house has lead to be certain or you can send in a sample yourself. If you are having any construction work done including remodeling, patch work, or additions, use a Lead Safe contractor. They will be able to provide you their certification card if they are actually a lead safe company. Of course you can remove the lead exposed areas yourself but it is always best to hire a professional to make sure that it is done right and 100% of the possible toxic agent is removed. Note that lead removal will increase the cost of your renovations slightly but it is nothing compared to the cost of the hospital bills that might be endured if exposed. At Creative, we do not increase the cost as a mean ‘Supply & Demand’ gimmick, there is just more work that needs to be done.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call us right away. We want you and your family to sleep well knowing you are safe and your customers to be safe in your office.
For more information please visit the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. You can access their website HERE.
Some of the information for this post is from The Royal Society of Chemistry. You can access the article and their website HERE.
