Lead paint is severely toxic and may result in severe health problems, including organ, nerve, hearing, and vision damage, slowed growth in children, and more. Test your home if it was built before 1978.
You can only obtain accurate results by having a professional inspection done or by sending a sample to a lab. Home lead test kits are cheaper but also less reliable—they’re better for initial testing. Nevertheless, here are all your options to test for lead paint.
Can You Test for Lead Without a Kit?
“There’s no way to know if paint is lead-based just by looking at it,” says Craig Lloyd of Lloyd Handyman in Atascadero, CA. “The only sure way to know if paint has lead in it is to scrape some of it off the wall and get it tested.” However, the year your home was built provides a major clue.
The main sign of lead paint is your home’s age: “If you have an older home and it was never remodeled, it’s likely the walls have lead paint,” explains Lloyd. “In the US, lead paint was banned in 1978.” So, if your home was built in the disco era, it’s time to play detective.
Any home built before 1978 could contain lead paint, but the older the home, the more likely it is to wear its original, lead-containing coats. 87% of homes built before 1940 have lead paint somewhere.
An additional sign may be a specific kind of wear: You may also notice a distinct pattern of wear on walls painted with lead-based paint. Sure, this isn’t a super-reliable clue—all paint can peel or crack over time. However, lead paint often deteriorates in a characteristic way, forming wrinkles, cracks, or a scaly texture. This process carries its own name, “alligatoring.”
That said, you could have lead paint that still looks flawlessly smooth. Think of alligatoring as just one clue, not definitive proof, when determining whether your home contains it.
To find out if you need to test for lead paint:
- Check if your home was built before 1978
- Ask the previous owner or your landlord if they know which paint was used
- Examine the paint for alligatoring
- Still not sure? Assume that lead paint is present and test for it
Your Lead Paint Test Options
Lead Test Kits
Pros: Inexpensive, easy, quick, non-destructive
Cons: Inaccurate, not recommended for homes with children or pregnant or nursing women, doesn’t measure quantity
Best for: Initial screening
Cost: $10 to $30 per kit (but you may need multiple)
Simple to use and readily available for various surfaces, these kits come with swabs that change color when they come into contact with lead—or at least they’re supposed to. However, they’re not foolproof.
“You can purchase a lead paint test kit at most hardware stores,” advises Lloyd. Despite their convenience and low price, Lloyd cautions that they sometimes give false results. You can use multiple test kits, but the safest route is to just use these for an initial screening and then get the testing done professionally. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strongly advises getting a professional inspection.
If you want to get home lead test kits anyway, the EPA endorses three types for a quick check:
- 3M™ LeadCheck™
- D-Lead®
- State of Massachusetts Test Kit (only in MA)
Follow the manufacturer’s instructions while testing. It usually involves rubbing a swab against exposed paint for a certain amount of time, then waiting to see if the test indicates a positive result.
X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF)
Pros: Highly accurate, quick, non-destructive, measures lead quantity
Cons: Costly, requires a certified inspector, won’t work on damaged or irregular surfaces
Best for: Mostly accurate and quick testing
Cost: $250 and $700 for a pro inspection
A more technical and accurate approach, XRF testing is the gold standard, offering quick and reliable results on various surfaces without damaging paint. However, it’s too expensive and difficult for the average DIYer.
Get a professional inspection rather than trying to XRF test your paint yourself; it’s cheaper, and contractors know what they’re doing. Lead inspection costs vary, but they tend to move between $250 and $700 on average.
Paint Chip Sampling
Pros: Most accurate, few samples are cost-effective, measures lead quantity
Cons: Slow, requires repair after sampling
Best for: Best accuracy, or when you’re only testing a few samples
Cost: $5 to $100 or more per sample, or $250 to $700 for a pro inspection
Lab testing is most precise. You can collect samples yourself or have it done professionally. Pros most often use XRF but may resort to lab tests if your XRF tests turn out inconclusive.
If you DIY, it can potentially save you money; the EPA says that a paint chip analysis may cost as little as $5 to $20 per sample. That’s much cheaper than a full professional inspection that tends to cost between $250 and $700.
However, since you’re likely to have to send multiple samples to a lab, the costs may turn out similar in the end. Testing some parts of your home, like water, may cost between $20 and $100 per sample. Another downside is that you can’t use this method on materials you don’t want to damage or send to a lab, like antique furniture and jewelry.
The wait for the results might feel endless—they may take up to two weeks to be ready. I definitely wouldn’t want to stay in a lead-contaminated home that long. Lastly, your own samples may not be as complete as those of a professional inspector.
What to Test
When testing for lead, it’s important to focus on areas where lead is most likely to be present and pose a risk of exposure. Common contaminated surfaces include:
- Painted surfaces, like walls
- Soil
- Household dust
- Water
- Children’s toys and furniture
- Consumer products
- Window sills and frames
- Doors and door frames
It’s also possible to measure lead levels in the air using monitoring equipment like airborne lead analyzers.
What’s Next
Speak with your doctor: If your home might have lead in it, or any part of it tests positive, the next step is to visit your doctor and get a blood test to monitor lead content in your body. This is most important for children and pregnant and nursing women. Speak with your doctor to decide the next best steps for your health and your children’s health.
Don’t live in a house with exposed lead paint: It’s dangerous to breathe in lead. Young children and pregnant and nursing mothers are most vulnerable to lead poisoning.
Don’t stay in a home that has tested positive for lead, or that you suspect could contain lead paint, until you do something about it.
Research your options to deal with lead:
- Scraping and stripping the paint, or replacing entire fixtures (best for the long run)
- Enclosing lead with plywood, vinyl, or another sturdy material
- Encapsulating lead with a special coating (safest for DIY, but not if the paint ever peels or releases dust).
Hire an abatement contractor: “Sometimes you have no choice but to remove the lead-based paint, in which case it’s time to bring in the professionals who will use air scrubbers and wear hazmat suits while removing the paint,” says Lloyd.
Removing lead paint completely is best in the long run because you lose the risk of it flaking off or becoming breathable dust. However, dealing with lead paint alone is dangerous, especially if you want to remove it.
I also spoke to Philip, a former construction, painting, and finishing contractor of 14 years, who worked in Richmond and Nottoway, VA. He recommends full professional lead removal as the safest abatement option. As a second-best option, he’d recommend you call a pro to paint over the lead.
The EPA also recommends you hire an EPA-certified pro to deal with your lead, whether you want to remove it or paint over it. The cost depends on the size of your project and the method.
Read more: Lead Paint Removal: What Are Your Options?
Prevent Lead Poisoning
If there’s any chance you have lead paint in your home, you need to know for sure. Then, you can deal with the lead appropriately.
I’d leave the job to a professional. When health is on the line, money isn’t a priority. I’d want professionals to test my home, and if lead is found, I’d call an ETA-certified pro to handle the removal too.
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Main Image: Photo Credit: Red, black, and white Danger, Lead Paint warning sign on a wall. Photo Credit: Kim Britten / Adobe Stock
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