Cleaning certain heritage buildings can potentially open the risk for historic dangers to reemerge, and an example of this is when removing lead paint from exterior surfaces as part of brick cleaning.
Paints which contain lead have been banned since 1992, but much like asbestos at around the same time, it was used so widely and so prominently that the dangers can still exist in buildings that have had specialist intervention.
Much like asbestos, if it needs to be removed, it must be done so extremely carefully as inhaling contaminated particles can potentially be dangerous. A professional team will use a testing kit to check for its presence and evaluate through its condition whether it poses a danger to you.
Removal is advisable but it is not the only option; as long as it is suitably sealed and covered up, it is unlikely to cause any dangers to health in the long term. However, as this will ultimately delay the point where it does need fixing, many people will opt to have it professionally removed.
As lead poisoning can cause a wide range of health complications, the first step to cleaning it away is to ensure that people are aware of the nature of the work and are clear from the area, whilst ensuring that all workers are wearing appropriate safety equipment.
Traditionally, an abrasive grit blaster and a vacuum system might be used, but our damp cleaning sand jet system has major advantages to this.
Firstly, we use considerably less abrasive – so far less contaminated waste will need removing at the end, but secondly the damp nature of the blast means that the paint particles are captured in the damp blast and sludge down the wall for easy collection.
Very little lead paint is present in the atmosphere as a result and, while we wear full air-fed masks for the operation, we aren’t going to create a major contaminated dust nuisance.
The lead paint will be stripped from the walls whilst minimising how much dust is created and enters the air. The photos below show the cleaning of the internal lead-painted walls at the listed Rutland Mills in Wakefield.
