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Testing for Lead Based Paint

By May 26, 2015No Comments

Environix testing for Lead PaintWe recently had some clients who decided to have a home they were purchasing tested for lead based paint as part of their home inspection (if you don’t know the dangers of lead in your home, read this). The family has a 4 year old plus a baby on the way and with plans to take on some remodeling work, they wanted to make sure they knew exactly what they were dealing with. Most people think of the good ol’ fashioned way of testing for lead which involved scraping pieces of paint from various areas around a house and then either using a home test kit to see if lead is present or sending the samples off to a lab for confirmation, which could take a few days for results to be made available.

However, technology has improved dramatically and now testing for lead is as simple as hiring a lead expert like Tim from Environix to scan the walls of a home using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) lead paint analyzer. The process was quick and non-invasive with zero scraping required. Tim simply took readings from various points within the home and was able to give an immediate result regarding the presence (or in our buyer’s case, the non-existence) of lead based paint. While the cost may seem significant ($350 for the first hour), our client’s felt that the advantages of knowing for sure if there was lead present in their new home far outweighed the cost and we couldn’t agree more!

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