lead paint info

Here is a link that might be useful: lead paint info

We've always been very very careful. One of the reasons that it is taking us a long time to paint our house is we twice hired contractors for a small part (e.g. the outside of the upstairs back porch and the downstairs porch ceiling), but we couldn't get them to meet OUR clean lead-careful standards.
Now that they have to by law, none of them want to touch our house.
Kathy

"Now that they have to by law, none of them want to touch our house. "

So take that.

We have had some windows restored and the woodwork in our son's room stripped/repainted. We used a painting company which was certified in lead paint removal. In our area (Southeastern PA) there are a lot of contractors which are certified in lead paint removal. I guess its also important to educate yourself to ensure that they are complying with the regulations on which they have been trained. I think doing the work yourself is probably the best option though, as no one will be as careful as you are with your house!

And simply covering it with a new coat of paint remains the easiest and safest option.

Oh, do you mean the "Old House Decimation Law"? The EPA RRP will surely do more to destroy the value of our old houses than anything else imaginable.

And it's also putting a terrible hurting on small businesses, such as carpet layers, tile installers, roofers, painters, plumbers, electricians and other contractors.

If you're in favor of this law, then you haven't read the actual legislation, for it's a nightmare. It's surely the most egregious piece of legislation that has EVER come into our living rooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: More about the new lead law

"h, do you mean the "Old House Decimation Law"? The EPA RRP will surely do more to destroy the value of our old houses than anything else imaginable. "

Probably viewed as an economic stimulus plan to force construction (and demolition) of older structures (you know, the ones already a hundred years plus old?).

This may also vary regionally---we didn't have a problem finding contractors who were certified in Northern California, but we also had pretty strict state regulations around lead even before the EPA law went into effect. We actually got bids for our kitchen renovation work before the law went into effect and moved forward with contracts afterwards and it didn't affect cost or interest in the job, at least for our project. We have a 1915 house with known lead issues, so we just had to document where there was lead and where there wasn't (we had tested everything the year before the renovation in preparation) and the demo contractors had to follow a set of dust containment procedures---basically, sealing the room off very tightly, vacuuming with a HEPA vacuum at the end of each day, and some protective masks. (Honestly, I would have asked for basically the same procedures anyway!) We were fortunate that while all our trim is painted with lead-based enamel, our plaster walls tested clean. So we had the demo crew remove all trim and after that the site was considered "lead-free" so crews were free to work as usual since we could document that they were not disturbing lead paint. (We still have some lead paint on windows and doors and such in the room, but we weren't changing any of that so it wasn't being disturbed.)

Nobody really asked about it, either, which really surprised me. (I went in armed with all our tests and reports, and no one ever looked at them!) Our city just gave us a brochure when we pulled permits, asked where there was lead, and asked for the name of the demo crew (a local nonprofit with lots of experience in this arena, so they were known to the city and certified). Surprisingly painless, actually---much less involved than the asbestos abatement work that was also part of the project and required a specialized crew.

It may just be that California contractors are used to being regulated every which way and just do the certification courses and change their procedures as the laws pop up, but it really doesn't seem to be a big issue here one way or the other. This was for an interior job, though---no clue how they would contain dust from, say, stripping wood shingles, so I can imagine that work might be much more expensive now.

"It may just be that California contractors are used to being regulated every which way "

I think you have the right idea.

If the state laws were as least as tough as the newer federal laws they already knew how to comply.

States can have stricter laws in these cases, but if they have looser laws the federal law rules.