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Case Study: Lead Paint & Dust In Heritage Houses By Robert Aurisch As my family grew to four children, I knew the time had come to purchase a larger house to accommodate our needs. An opportunity arose to purchase my wife's Grandparents' house. At first I was reluctant as the house was over 100 years old and no maintenance had been completed on it. The house was on a large block of land (900 square meters) which appealed to me. My first impression was to demolish it and rebuild.
We finally settled with the family members in December 1996, for a price, on the condition that we accept the house the way it was. Knowing this I did not complete a building inspection survey before purchase, as I knew the purchase was only for land value. My wife appealed to me to keep the house, as it was part of her family heritage with her own father being born in the front bedroom. Reluctantly, I agreed to keep the old house. I knew it would cost a lot of money to fix so I took out an Owner Builder's license to keep the costs to a minimum. I considered my knowledge and experience of managing people and safety issues would get me by for handling contractors. I was a practical person who worked in the petrochemical and wastewater industries for many years. The demolishing of old buildings I could complete myself and then employ specific tradesmen to complete structural work. The renovation needed to be completed in stages. The land was full of unauthorized buildings, such as old sheds, additions on to the house etc. This probably was a generally acceptable practice back in those days as there was no Council control. There was a large shed in the middle of the yard, which needed to be removed and a new one built. A major garage construction group presented an application to Council for a new garage and the demolishing of the old shed. They would complete the new garage with myself completing the demolition work. Because I needed a larger than normal storage space for materials during construction, the garage application was for a very large construction, (130 sq m plus a small workshop). The Council planners wanted a site inspection to ask questions on why I wanted it so big. On the day of the visit their interest turned towards the old house rather than the garage. Two weeks later I received a letter from the Council stating that the house, had significant value to the heritage of the community and would be placed under Heritage listings. I started to wonder if I had made the right decision to purchase the house. Eight weeks later I received approval for the new garage and the demolition of the house extensions. The major garage construction group completed the new garage and then I proceeded to demolish the old garage, which was made of tin and wood. Being a bit of a novice at demolishing I did the best I could to ensure that I kept the younger children away in case any fell on them. As far as I was aware, there were no direct instructions from the Council. During the demolition of the old garage, which presented many problems, I encountered a major dust problem. The dust was all over the yard until I started wetting it down. My wife started to question me again about the dust and told me to beware of the asthma problem. The next stage of the construction was the house. I arranged many meetings with the Council and my draftsman on what I could do and could not do. The Council arranged a site visit with their Heritage architect consultant to finalize plans. Their focus was purely on construction and the final outcome of the restoration. Final plans were agreed to, which we expected to take a fair while to endorse. It was agreed to keep the front section of the house, which consisted of:
The rest would be demolished. The rooms to be kept were structurally sound but needed the following work completed:
At this stage, I felt the stress of a high workload at work and home and I started looking for short cuts - something I promised myself I would not do. I arranged a meeting with a sand blaster to remove the external paint. There were issues of the mortar being removed and dust issues. I was undecided and commenced the other work first. My wife naturally focussed on heath issues relating to my young children [Asthma] and made me aware not to allow them in the house while all the dust was around. I did this but the dust went out windows and doors to give some relief to me. The children played in the large backyard while I did the work. I worked 16 hrs a day in attempting to complete the work on time [8 hrs at work, 8 hrs at home]. I sometimes had lunch and tea made for me by my family members while working in the house and other times I just went to the caravan without changing my clothes. My wife continued to investigate heath-related issues with old houses, especially paint and dust. A month had passed and everything I thought was going OK. My family was living in abnormal conditions but the end result looked achievable. On a visit to our local doctor for my son's asthma problem, my wife told the doctor of our living conditions and how I was doing the work. My wife convinced the Doctor of the need for health surveillance during the renovation. After researching, the Doctor explained to my wife that the children must be kept away from the dust and from the paint, which could possibly be lead-based. He organized blood lead tests as he explained the serious effect it can have on children and adults. My wife explained to me the situation and I organized a lead testing kit for the paint, which proved positive. I continued the work until one day I received a phone call from my wife at work in tears. The local Doctor had just advised her that the blood lead level in the younger children was borderline for going over the national goal. The Doctor ordered the following immediate actions to commence:
My wife was extremely disappointed in me that I allowed this to happen and considered removing the children if I didn’t complete the work to lead-safe standards that my wife had researched. My wife called The LEAD Group which is an organisation set up to build awareness of lead contamination and lead poisoning prevention. They run an information and referral service called the Lead Advisory Service Australia - which my wife rang several times for information. This would have to go down as the lowest morale period of my life. I had seriously affected the health and safety of my children. I was looking for answers. I had only myself to blame. I started to review all the work methods. The Lead Advisory Service Australia gave us safe working instructions for the removal of dust and lead based paint. I completed the work in the front of the house following the guidelines set down by the doctor and the Lead Advisory Service. It didn’t occur to me to contact the Council, as they didn’t supply any information to me on lead abatement during all the meetings I attended with them for the restoration of the house. In all the mess with the children I didn’t give myself a thought. The Doctor asked me to have a blood lead level test after I paid a visit to him after complaining of being completely run down and having no energy. Sure enough my levels were high and corrective action needed to be taken immediately. I just thought it was the stress of the situation. After six months living like gypsies and under the stress created by the lead dust and paint we finally gained approval to complete the rest of the house by the Council. I had learnt valuable lessons on the way and wasn’t about to make the same mistakes.
The rest of the house was new and only required the appropriate tradesmen to complete the work. Finally most of the work was completed in 1998. Our nightmare was over. The house had proven to be a good investment for my family, however, I will never forget what happened, as it still plays on my mind. The results were:
All in the heritage look. However I was wrong. The Council had written [September 2000] to me about an application to demolish and rebuild the next door property asking whether I had any objections and, if so, can I put them in writing. This property was the same age as my property and it concerns me that no one had been living there for more than 10 years. I explained to the Council in writing, that I did not object to the building, however, I expected the Council to apply a duty of care to the following:
The Council sent a letter back to me saying they have registered my concerns and that they are on file. In February 2001 I received a phone called from my wife, saying that they are demolishing the old house next door and that there was air borne dust gathering inside and outside our house. We cleaned the dust up and talked to the contractor who immediately started wetting down the dust. Our nightmare had returned.
After 5 years of investigating Occupational Health & Safety standards on building sites and through University studies, I have listed problem areas that need to have controls placed on them. Quality systems must be introduced to all building sites to ensure the safety of all communities. This is why I am writing this case study to promote awareness of the risks involved in lead dust and paint and other issues that may affect members of your family. I hope that other prospective buyers of Heritage houses or pre 1970 houses read this information so as to ensure their family's safety.
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We
decided to rent the property before purchase so my wife's family could
decide on a negotiable price for the house and land. I cleaned the house
to a liveable standard, which took 4 weeks. During this time I noticed a
large amount of dust in roof cavities, carpet and generally all over.
The house had been painted externally which was flaking off the bricks. My
wife, who is a nurse, became concerned about dust because one of our
children had bad asthma and she asked me to remove the carpets. The
internal paint was also flaking off so I decided to repaint the house
before we moved in. There was a lot of effort needed to complete this
task as all wall and ceiling surfaces were in poor condition. I sanded
back and prepared the surfaces as best I could, knowing at some stage
down the track, if we purchased the house, it needed to be completely
renewed or the house demolished.
Because
the front section of the house restoration did not affect any structural
part, I was free to proceed without Council permission. The only problem
was it would be impossible to live in while the work took place. I
made application to Council to live in a temporary dwelling [Caravan]
while work took place. 3 weeks later approval was given. The only
condition on the approval was it had to be finished in 3 months.
Again
there wasn’t any mention of lead risk requirements by the Council but
it didn’t matter. I knew what I had to do. The front of the house was
lead free. The back section needed to be demolished. I completed that
job by removing the children from the site and applying safe working
conditions set down by the Lead Advisory Service for myself and family.
I
considered ringing the Council but after what had happened in the past I
thought it was too late after the event. To the Council's credit, they
were always very willing to help with restoring the house. They are
always safety and environment conscious, however, there are huge gaps in
the system that need to be plugged. They are now promoting lead
awareness but that is not enough. There needs to be a review of all
systems and how they are linked together.