Lead Paint Guide

What is Lead Paint Inspection?
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Lead Paint Inspection.

Lead paint inspection is one of the tasks required by the US government and many of its states to evaluate properties for lead-based paint. It is one of two testing procedures that are outlined by the guidelines released by the Housing and Urban Development or HUD. A lead paint inspector will evaluate the property to identify areas where lead-based paint was applied.

The pre-1978 era is characterized by houses painted with lead-based paints. Paints were previously added with lead pigment to increase the durability of the paint, retain its fresh look, speed-up its drying, and avoid corrosion by preventing the onset of moisture. When the mixing of lead pigment to paint was banned in 1978 by US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the lead-based paint was then restricted to application on parking lines and roadways. Despite the ban issued for the lead-based paint, there are still paints laced with lead pigment marketed to the public. Because of this, inspecting the paint job of properties became a standard procedure as a health precaution to the public.

The lead paint inspection is not limited to the inspection of the existing paint jobs of old houses. Inspectors also conduct lab analysis of the dust, soil and water of the surroundings to confirm that the lead has not been exposed to the environment. Inspectors will also not harm the appearance of the paint job because they can use special X-ray equipment to identify the lead content. This equipment use a non-destructive sampling method to assess the paint. Current equipment used for lead paint inspection is the XRF instrument. XRF stands for X-ray Fluorescence that makes it possible for inspectors to acquire fluorescence emission from a material with the use of gamma ray bombardment.

Lead paint inspection services are readily available from the Internet. Some websites even include other testing procedures as well as lead-safe work practices for use.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.