I am from the government and here to help you is often joked about as being ten of the most terrifying words that one could expect to hear in their lifetime. Now it appears that would fall to second place if you replace the word “help” with the word “protect.”

Effective April 22nd, the EPA has a new regulation that goes into effect affecting anyone living in or working on pre-1978 houses that may contain lead. As a homeowner, there is nothing in there that says you have to follow, or even care about the regulation, but it is still going to affect you in many ways. (EPA’s Facts on Lead)

The cost for everyone is going up, including those that do not live in a pre-78 house.  Why? Well most firms that have been certified have also had to send one or more individuals to training, bought additional equipment, and depending on their risk exposure may have had to purchase a Pollution Liability Policy that starts out in the thousands.  As these items cannot be assigned to one particular job, the cost is spread out and applied to all jobs (AKA Overhead).

The costs for your project in a pre-78 house will also be increasing. Many contractors will have to budget extra time to inform you of the RRP regulation, the extra paperwork required on these jobs, the additional expenses of complying with this regulation, etc…While the EPA states that it should only add $8 to a $165 to a job, I can tell you that they have a propensity for understating what the true costs are, while inflating the positive aspects. Their original estimates done in 2005 showed that the containment costs per job would run anywhere from $22.67 to $527.89 per job which is a lot more accurate than their latest numbers.

There is a lack of Certified Firms to do the work, which could cause you to have to wait a very long time for one to be able to do the work. If a non-certified firm does the work, they are risking a $30K+ fine per day for failing to be certified and follow these lead safe work practices. While you are not required to hire a Certified Firm, do you really want someone working on your house that does not care about the regulations? What else might they not care about, or how often would they say, “well that’s good enough.” (EPA’s – Find a Certified Firm)

Confusion over testing procedures can also cause you some major issues down the line when it comes time to sell your house. In order to help prevent this, I am going to quote this directly from the regulation: 745-61 (c) Nothing in this subpart requires the owner of property(ies) subject to these standards to evaluate the property(ies) for the presence of lead-based paint hazards or take any action to control these conditions if one or more of them is identified. The only time I would recommend that testing should be performed is when you know with a 100% certainty that lead paint is not present. (LEAD FAQ’s – To Test or Not to Test – that is the question)

Confusion over the regulation is also another big issue that was caused by the mandatory classes that the Certified Renovators had to attend. The class was originally intended to show you the actual regulation, and then teach you steps for complying with the regulation. Not all the steps shown in class are required on every job. Unfortunately, based on who did the training, many are under the mistaken impression that Haz-Mat suits have to be worn the entire time, others believe everyone needs to follow protocols established for asbestos abatement (tent everything, etc….), and the list goes on. Unfortunately, that confusion may cause some contractors to overestimate the scope of what is truly required, while some great contractors have said, instead, “This is ridiculous; I am not working on those houses anymore.” (The Process of Remodeling a pre 1978 house)

– Sean Lintow Sr. (SLS Construction)

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Building Moxie . . . The Blog would like to thank Sean and his team SLS Construction for participating in the Tagged! project.  You can find Sean on Twitter @SLSContruction.  He is also available on the web at http://www.SLS-Construction.com, thru his blog http://blog.SLS-Construction.com (AKA the Homeowners Resource Center) and via email at info@SLS-Construction.com.

Sean was tagged by Mike Hines of HomePath Products; Mike too may be found on Twitter @eXapath.