Lead paint removal - windowsills
My wife and I moved into a beautiful brownstone in Carroll Gardens a few years ago before we had kids with lots of original details on the parlor floor. The folks who sold us the place had little children of their own and had renovated both floors. Now we have two sons, the second at…
My wife and I moved into a beautiful brownstone in Carroll Gardens a few years ago before we had kids with lots of original details on the parlor floor. The folks who sold us the place had little children of their own and had renovated both floors.
Now we have two sons, the second at 1 years who spends a lot of time around the parlor windows and just tested for a slightly elevated lead level. We were trying to pinpoint the cause and narrowed it down to potentially lead in the paint around the sills, since he spends a great deal more time around there than our first son (who is now 3).
Sure enough we had lead testing done and the statement in return is that the lead around the windows is “off the charts” – whatever that means (still haven’t gotten a report back so only had this statement over the phone.
We have beautiful old shutters that we have now sent out to be dipped, but the firm that is dipping will not come out and strip the moldings around the sill. Our contractor also is concerned about doing anything to disturb and create more dust.
Any thoughts here? Can we just repaint and encapsulate? My fear is that the shutters do bang around a bit and if they simply hit the molding sides and dislodge more paint, I fear we will still have issues.
One idea our contractor had was to remove the moldings completely, have them dipped, and reinstalled. The only concern is cost and of course potential damage that may happen in the removal process. Other option he had was so simply replace these old moldings – he claims he could replicate them exactly… though I am always a little skeptical of this.
SHould we just call a lead abatement expert and get their advice?
Thanks so much for any thoughts – totally freaked out over all of this!
I’m the original poster. IN answer to the anon poster at 1.57pm, our windows were actually all replaced, so they are not originals which were installed in the 1990s, so I am not worried there.
In answer to Tom, the moldings are actually low on details. I’ll have to look again but they are sort of a wavy pattern – certainly not like an Egg & Dart pattern like yours…
I was going to start with the two front parlors and the moldings, and then perhaps the one back window which is the only other spot with original moldings. The downstairs windows are new and the whole place down there was gut renovated.
If things worked well with either the dip or the replacement alternative, thought perhaps we’d replace the rest of the moldings, though I also thought we might get away with painting them to seal them rather than stripping everything.
Well i know my mouldings could not be replicated without someone making a knife that matches them (which is very expensive). Do the mouldings have much detail? Mine have an egg and dart pattern. The width and thickness are not manufactured anymore either, so I would think your contractor would have to mill the wood down to do an exact match. Not sure what advice to give you. I know from experience, that taking off the moulding and putting it back after it was stripped seemed easier since the size fits back exactly and some of the cuts on the moulding were coped. You can probably get away with new blindstops. If you are only doing the parlor windows, does it cross your mind to do all the other windows? Do they have the same problem?
You should be concerned about lead dust, not necessarily the lead in the paint. Is it possible that whenever you open and close your windows — because your windows are old and have pre-1978 paint on them — that you’re creating dust? Even without the shutters and their paint, the friction from opening and shutting painted windows creates a lot of invisible dust. We had this problem in our old coop apt. which had no shutters, but many old windows. Our lead dust test results were off the charts next to our windows also.
One more question to Tom: Was it more worth it to you to remove and dip rather than simply get new mouldings put in place?
My contractor swears that he could exactly duplicate the mouldings there now. Not sure if I am 100% certain of this – but perhaps if that is true, maybe it is a better and cheaper result than removal, stripping, and then putting them back on?
I removed them myself. Your contractor may a little damage, but if he is careful he should be able to remove them. I did have a little damage on some of my mouldings but nothing noticable.
Tom, did you do the removal of the molding urself or did you have a contractor do it? Also, did you do it in steps?
My contractor has indicated he can remove the moldings, but was concerned there may be slight damage to them when removed if there are any issues with how they are attached.
Hi, in regards to the question from Anonymous above as to the age of our son and the level, he was tested at 9 (still not high enough for the Dr. to think there was anything that needed to be immediately done (10 is the rating at which they show real concern as to elevation)).
The problem with just re-coating is that the paint is right around the area where there is lots of friction and banging caused by our shutters. It would super sad to remove the shutters completely, and just would expose build of up paint areas.
In fact, when we removed the shutters we found cracking paint all the way around which was kind of scary.
Dont be afraid to pull the mouldings off and have them dipped. The were installed by old craftsman and will go right back very easily. Just seal the room up (the area around the windows at least) Carefully remove all the wood around the windows, pull the nails out from the back (so as not to damage the front of the moulding). Label the moulding with an engraver (dremmel tool). After they are stripped you can stain and seal them with polyurethane. I have done this to 80% of my house and am so happy to look at wood and not paint as thick as cake icing!
you can also use peel away to remove the old paint and then put a couple of new coats of paint over it.
Peel away is the paste that you spread on the wood and then cover with a special paper. Once it dries you, as the name says, peel it away.
The benefit is that it does not disrupt the paint the way scraping or sanding would.