For owners of pre-1978 homes, Apr. 22 is the date that the EPA’s Renovate, Repair and Painting Rule, otherwise known as “the lead paint law”, goes into effect. Read on to see how it will affect you.
About the law
The regulation states that contractors who affect more than 6 square feet of a painted interior (a 2’ x 3’ or larger area) on a pre-1978 house must:
- have their firm registered with EPA
- have a Certified Renovator on site to execute and document safe dust-containment protocols
- have a Certified Renovator on site to conduct and document the clean verification process
The same rule applies to 20 square feet of a painted exterior (a 4’ x 5’ or larger area).
“We do a lot of work in Nashville on pre-1978 homes and respect the concerns about lead exposure, especially when there are young children. We’re already sticklers about dust containment but it will definitely change the way we go about our daily work,” says Mark Holiday, one of our EPA-Certified Renovators and our Production/Client Services Manager.
How it affects you
1. The EPA will look to make examples out of non-compliant contractors by shutting down projects and leaving them incomplete for an unspecified length of time. Monies you have paid the contractor may then go to pay fines – a whopping $37,500 per violation per day – rather than toward progress of the project.
2. There will be an added cost to following the EPA’s mandated lead-safe work practices. You can expect to begin seeing EPA Compliance Surcharges on work estimates that average $500 to $1,500 per job in materials, labor and expenses.
3. Upon selling your home, you may have to disclose whether lead is present in your home or certify if lead-safe work practices were used during any repairs and renovations. This could affect the value of your home.
“Since there has been no EPA awareness campaign that this law is coming down, we are just trying to get the word out. This is as much a major consumer issue as it is a contractor’s issue, if not more so. Please help spread the word to your friends and neighbors and save them from getting into a situation with a non-compliant contractor that they did not bargain for,” Holiday says.
What to do
If you own a home built before 1978, before hiring any home improvement contractor, ask if they are RRP-compliant or EPA Lead-Safe Certified. You will probably get a blank stare.
Trace obtained its EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm designation on Mar. 8 after applying for it last December and has three Certified Renovators on staff.
