If your house was built before 1970, the Commonwealth's Lead Alert guide says to find out whether the paint contains lead before anyone sands or scrapes it. A test kit can screen for it; only a lab test can confirm it. Here's how each works and what happens next.
If your house was built before 1970, a lead paint test comes before anyone sands, scrapes or strips it. It's step one of the Commonwealth's own guide, Lead Alert: The six step guide to painting your home. A colour-change test kit from a hardware or paint store can screen for lead, and a portable XRF machine can give an instant reading, but only a laboratory analysis of a paint sample can confirm how much lead is there. If the test is unclear and the house is old enough, the guide's advice is to treat the paint as if it contains lead.
This post sets out what the guide and the NSW Government say about lead paint in homes, so you can plan a repaint around it. We're house painters in Adamstown, working on a lot of older weatherboard and brick homes across Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, and this is the process we follow on them. We're not health advisers, so for anything about your family's health, go to the sources we link below.
The guide says homes built before 1970 are the most at risk, and that paints used inside and outside homes built before 1950 could contain as much as 50 per cent lead. Paint with more than 1 per cent lead was still in use until the late 1960s. By about 1970, the lead content of house paint was limited to 1 per cent. A 0.25 per cent limit was recommended in 1992, and the limit has been 0.1 per cent since December 1997.
A newer house isn't automatically clear. The guide notes that homes built after 1970 might still have paint with more lead in it, particularly where old paint, industrial paint or marine paint was used. NSW Health's fact sheet on lead exposure also points to household paints used before 1970 as a source.
As for where it turns up on a house, the guide lists white lead in top coats on weatherboards, structural timbers, window and door frames, cement render, fences and railings. A pink primer containing lead was used under paint on timber and plaster, and a red-lead primer was used on timber window sills into the 1970s. Old galvanised fences built from recycled roof iron often have red lead paint along the overlaps. These are exactly the surfaces an exterior repaint has to prepare.
The guide describes three ways to find out.
Colour-change test kits. These are sold for home use at hardware stores and paint or safety suppliers. You apply a swab to the paint and it changes colour if it detects lead above a certain level, which varies by brand. The guide carries a clear warning: these kits can give false negatives and false positives, and the colour change is hard to see on dark paint.
Portable XRF. An X-ray fluorescence machine doesn't damage the paint and gives an instant reading. It's specialised equipment, so you pay a professional to operate it, and the guide notes they give you a printout without interpreting it.
Laboratory analysis. A paint sample is sent to a lab, either one you collect with a sampling kit or one collected by an environmental consultant or occupational hygienist. The guide recommends a lab that is NATA accredited, has experience testing for lead and takes part in proficiency testing. Labs don't interpret the results for you, but a consultant's report will.
Whichever method you use, follow its instructions and test every layer of paint, or at least the oldest ones. The guide suggests taking a paint chip off at an angle so the layers show, and testing the underside, because the older layers are the ones more likely to contain lead.
A lab result is the one that changes how a job can be run. The guide says only laboratory analysis can show whether working on the paint is "lead risk work", which contractors must notify their state safe work regulator about before it starts.
In NSW that's SafeWork NSW, which defines lead risk work by whether the work is likely to push a worker's blood lead above set levels. Its lead notifications page lists removing paint containing lead as a process involving lead, says each such process must be assessed, and says that if a business can't work out whether lead risk work is being carried out, it should assume it is. You can read the detail on the SafeWork NSW lead notifications page.
That's why a lab test is worth paying for before an older house is prepared. It tells everyone which methods the job needs, which parts can be painted over and whether a specialist should do part of the work.
The guide is written for people renovating their own homes, and it also says that, ideally, homes with lead paint should be assessed and fixed by trained professionals. Its six steps, in short:
1. Before you start. Find out how much lead is in the paint, then decide on your options: leave it, cover it, replace painted parts such as skirtings and sashes, or remove the paint. Plan where the family will live and how the waste will be handled.
2. Plan to stay safe. Pregnant or breastfeeding women, women planning a pregnancy, young children and pets leave whenever lead paint is disturbed. Tell the neighbours. Don't work outside on windy or wet days. Anyone doing the work wears a respirator that meets Australian Standard 1716, with P1 or P2 filters, plus disposable coveralls, overshoes, a hat and gloves. The guide says ordinary dust masks don't work against lead dust.
3. Set up properly. Outside, plastic sheeting covers the ground two metres out from the walls, plus a metre for each storey, with windows, doors and vents closed. Inside, the work area is sealed off with plastic and tape and the room emptied.
4. Cover or remove the paint. Sound paint can be washed and painted over. Where paint has to come off, the guide lists wet scraping and wet sanding, with chemical strippers as another option. Dry power sanding with a HEPA vacuum attachment is only for contractors with the right training and experience. It warns that blasting, burning, dry scraping, dry sanding and power-tool cleaning create the most serious dangers, and that open-flame torches and high-temperature heat guns produce lead fumes.
5. Clean up. Mist the dust down before lifting the plastic. Vacuum with a HEPA-filtered commercial vacuum, never a broom or an ordinary vacuum cleaner, and wash surfaces with a high-phosphate solution. The guide describes a three-bucket mopping method, and clearance testing of dust and soil afterwards if you want proof the clean-up worked.
6. Dispose of the waste. Lead paint waste can be classed as hazardous and has to go out under state and local rules. Bag it, don't burn painted timber, and never pour the wash water down a drain or onto the garden.
The full guide, Lead Alert: The six step guide to painting your home, is free to read.
On any house built before 1970, we treat the old paint as if it contains lead until a laboratory test says it doesn't. We raise testing at the quote, before any sanding is planned, and we price the prep around the guide's methods: wet scraping and wet sanding, drop sheets that run well out from the walls, and a HEPA vacuum for the clean-up. We never dry sand, blast or burn old paint on these houses.
If the test shows lead and the job calls for more than careful preparation and painting over, we'll tell you at the quote. Some parts of a job may need a contractor with lead paint management training, which the guide recommends wherever lead paint has to be disturbed. Its advice when choosing one is to ask whether they have completed a nationally recognised qualification in safe lead paint removal, and to ask to see the certificate.
The guide also includes a checklist for getting quotes on lead paint work, so every contractor prices the same tasks. It's worth printing if you're comparing quotes on an older house. Our post on how much to paint a house covers comparing quotes in general.
If you think you or your family have been exposed to lead, the guide says to ask your doctor about a blood test. NSW Health says to contact your doctor or your local Public Health Unit on 1300 066 055. Its fact sheet on lead exposure explains how lead gets into the body and how to cut exposure at home.
The same fact sheet says not to collect rainwater from a roof painted with high-lead products, such as pre-1970s paint. If your house is on tank water and the roof has old paint, mention it when we quote. Our page on roof painting explains how we handle roofs that feed a tank.
A lead test adds a few days and a lab fee to the start of a job. It also tells you which surfaces can simply be painted over and which need more care, and that can make the quote smaller as well as safer. Our pages on exterior house painting and interior painting cover the prep we do on every house. If your home was built before 1970, ask us for a free written quote and we'll talk through testing at the visit.
They're a screening tool, not a final answer. The Commonwealth guide warns that colour-change kits can give false negatives and false positives, and that the colour change is hard to see on dark paint. If a kit shows nothing but your house is old enough to have lead paint, the guide says to assume it's there or have a laboratory test the paint.
When the Commonwealth guide was published in 2016, it put colour-change kits at about $25 to $100 and laboratory analysis at about $25 to $100 a sample. Prices will have moved since. An environmental consultant or occupational hygienist who collects the samples and writes a report costs more, but you get the results explained.
It can. The guide says the lead content of house paint was limited to 1 per cent by about 1970, but later homes may still have paint with more lead in it, particularly where old stock, industrial paint or marine paint was used. If you're not sure of your house's paint history, a lab test settles it.
If it's in good condition and isn't flaking or chalking, the guide says it can be covered with new paint after a wash, using as little sanding as possible. It also says painting over is a temporary fix that lasts only as long as the new paint, and suggests removing lead paint from parts that get knocked or rubbed, like skirtings, stair treads and sash windows.
The guide says pregnant or breastfeeding women, women planning a pregnancy, young children and pets should leave the home whenever paint containing lead is disturbed, and not come back until the dust and debris are cleaned up. Plan that before the job starts, so nobody is caught in the house on a prep day.
The guide says lead paint waste can count as hazardous waste and must be disposed of under state and local rules. Debris goes into heavy-duty bags, painted timber is never burnt, and wash water is sealed in a container rather than poured down a drain or onto the garden. Your council can tell you where it goes.
A few lines and a photo or two is enough. We'll ring to book a look, then leave you a written quote with every surface and every coat on it. No obligation, and no follow-up calls chasing you if you decide to wait a while longer.