Wood positive for lead? Advice please!

[Catheetiem]

Good evening everyone!! Pictures are linked at the bottom!

We just closed on an 1870 house in CT yesterday. First thing to do was to rip up the carpet that covered the first floor. The previous owner had put the carpet down when he did extensive renovations around 1992/1993.

For the hell of it, I used a 3M lead paint test on the floor. It came up positive. Tested again and again all over the floor, it is coming up positive consistently. I had thought there was stain on the floor (most is sanded, bare wood) but perhaps it's paint? Or stain with lead?

The thing I don't understand is that no matter where I test, it's positive. Even in the middle of the floors where it looks like total bare wood, it's positive. We even tested the wood on the staircase that the previous owner put in in 1992/1993, and while not quite as dark of a result, it turned pink.


So, I have a lot of questions that someone hopefully can help resolve:

1. Will the 3M test show false positives when testing on a straight wood surface with no paint?

2. Is there anything else that could be giving us a false positive?

3. If this is truly lead, how expensive/laborious is abatement for it?

4. If this is lead, should we be worried about our exposure? We ripped up the carpets and there was quite a lot of dust/dirt flying around. I'm assuming that that was really just dirt from 30 year old carpets, but could there possibly have been lead dust in there? We taped doorways and wore 3M paint respirators as a precaution, should we be worried about lead exposure?

5. Just as a second topic are these floors even salvageable? Would love to sand and refinish them if it's possible, but obviously they are rough. Some of those stains seem to be animal pee (probably dog, old tenants had small dog). Could these end up nice, or even acceptable, or are they too far gone? Our plan if we cannot reasonably save these (or if it's truly lead and the abatement is too much for right now) is to put down engineered hardwoods. Would prefer real hardwood, but what we've found is very thick and will make things with the trim more difficult, the engineered stuff is thin enough that it doesn't seem like it will be a problem.

I'll link an album with pictures for reference:

https://imgur.com/a/6rTm7Fx

Lots of pictures with captions in there. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. We are trying to get this all done (need to paint every room too, and normal move-in cleaning) by January 1st. Thank you so very much!!

[Gothichome]

Cathy, your floors were originally intended to be covered. Th nails give it away. If it was intended to be stained and visible the boards would have been blind nailed.why the positive lead test all over the place I can only speculate that your picking up dust. I think I would just vacuum and damp mop and cover. In my view the issue of lead has been overblown, yes it is a concern but it is not the bugaboo it is made out to be.
Depending on the fancyness of the home and the wealth of the original owner you may have had wall to wall broadloom on the main floor public areas and. Lesser quality in the non public areas like bedrooms. The dinning room and main parlour may have had hardwood as well as the main hall off the front door, all meant to impress.
Tell more of of your new old home? We there is not much old home related that some one here in the district has not dealt with.
Ron

[Gothichome]

Cathee, I have been looking at your living room (parlour) pictures a bit closer. I think I can make out three different floor covers up till the time the walls were knocked out and doorways reconfigured. When the home was built it have a carpet and stained edges, second floor looks like it might have been another carpet, maybe linoleum with the edges painted the okra colour, next was an even larger carpet once again probably linoleum with the edges painted white. This was quite common for rugs, both regular and linoleum well into the 1900’s. The linoleum underlayment which may have been a thick paper product was glued to the floor with a clay based glue and the linoleum glued to the paper underlayment. When the floors were lifted the clay base glue was simply washed away.

Ron

[Catheetiem]

Thank you so much, you've been so helpful and we totally agree that there was likely carpet down and stained around it, that's absolutely what it looks like.

Weve decided that for now we'll be putting engineered hardwoods down, and in the future we may put real wood down, but at the moment we're on a bit of a time crunch so we'll have to make do.

My question now is about the stairs. They were built in 1993 but the tread of the first step tested positive for lead last night. We're going over there soon and will rip up the rest and see how it tests, but if it all tests positive and wiping away dust doesn't work, where do we go from there? My ideal would be to stain the treads to match the engineered stuff (were likely going with something dark) and paint the kickboards white. However, if it's lead, would we just have to paint over the entire thing then?

Long term we would love to take out part of the wall enclosing the staircase and put in a rail and banisters and newel post, but that's for later.

I will be posting so much about the house soon, I have a million questions!!

Were in southern/western Connecticut. The town lists the house's age as 1870. The house was built by a nearby factory, the original deed is from 1876 and it was sold for $1 from the company to an employee of the company (and if the owner sells liquor on the premises, the company will take the house back!). Then I lose track of it for a little while until the 30s where another employee of the company takes ownership of it and I can trace it through a couple more people from there. Im going to go to the town to look at their paper records, but not until after we move in as right now all my time has to be spent working on it haha.

On the same street are a couple of other houses also built by the company. I've been inside one of them and seen photos of some others. The house right next door that was built by the company (the one I've been inside) is very similar, but slightly smaller and not finished quite as nicely.

Here are a couple details on the house:
https://imgur.com/a/SZbem7D

The original door and storm door. They're slightly nicer than the original on the house next door.

I'll upload more shortly, probably Monday when I'm back at work haha. I have a million questions, especially now that yesterday we were starting to wonder if the portion weve been thinking is an addition we think may not be an addition based on looking at the construction in the basement. I will be definitely asking for some guidance on that one haha.

[CleavesHouse]

The positive lead test from the stair tread is again probably just dust. Ventilate the area whenever stirring up any dust, keeping the area isolated from other parts of the house, wear a good fitting mask (N95 or better), Wet mop, vacuum (ideally with a HEPA-filtered vacuum), and be sure to wash your hands before eating or drinking (and don't eat or drink in the dusty space!). It seems likely that whoever did the 1992/93 reno probably did not take any of these precautions and thus inadvertently left your house fully contaminated with lead dust. Sorry. All you can do now is to do your best to use current best practices and clean up after them....

Lead paint in good condition is not really a problem, unless you make a habit of chewing on your painted woodwork. The problem comes when the paint deteriorates and turns in to chips and dust that can be inhaled, or picked up on hands and then ingested from there (etc...). It is particularly a problem for children, who are more susceptible to lead poisoning due to their brains (and the blood-brain barrier) not being fully developed yet. Yes, adults can suffer lead poisoning, too. So it is good to be cautious, but not necessarily paranoid.

[Catheetiem]

Thank you so much! Definitely taking your advice!!

Yesterday and today we taped off the rooms to pull up the carpet, taped off the heating vents, and had painting respirators (don't know if that's what they're actually called, it's the big chunky mask that has canisters with charcoal on each side, and then N95 pads on top of that. They've definitely been working hard, we can see how dirty the pads are getting!!

I'm waiting to hear back from a lead consulting company. Although we're sure at this point that we're putting something down on top of it, we'd like to know for the future if they're able to be worked with or not. I also want to know how to handle the stairs, if just cleaning them will be enough.

I wet mopped the downstairs bedroom and the foyer today. Definitely helped a lot, and will continue on after work tomorrow! Thank you, you've definitely helped put me at ease.

[Catheetiem]

So I'm just posting an update for anyone who stumbles upon this with a problem like this in the future.

We had a lead consulting company come out and do an inspection. They used an XRF gun and found that most of the positive results I'm getting are just from lead dust on the floors. Most of the floors have no lead at all, though in the living room the white border around the edges is lead paint. There's lead inside the window tracks and on the trim in the windows that are original, and in the door jamb of the original side door. There's some lead behind the dark blue wall in the living room, which makes sense as I don't believe the PO removed that wall, just sheetrocked over it. There's lead in the basement, the white paint covering the brick and fieldstone is lead, the yellow paint on one side of the chimney is lead (still wondering why only one side of the chimney is painted yellow, the other three are all bare brick?), and the green door to the bulkhead is lead (very high too, most of the paint in the house read at a 1-4, the green door read a 26!!!).

So, all in all, really some pretty good news! We're now really leaning toward not putting new flooring down and refinishing these. The lead guys said we had been doing a lot of things right so far, (taping off doorways, taping off heating vents, wearing masks, wet mopping) so overall we've been feeling pretty good. We'll finish cleaning up the floors this week hopefully, then move on to hepa vacuuming, getting as much of that white lead paint off as we can, fill what needs to be filled with wood filler, sanding with a hepa sander, vacuuming again, wet mopping, staining, and finishing. One of the lead guys is a former contractor, he said we were taking on a big job and he would just go over the floors with new stuff, but now knowing that there isn't lead that's seeped into the boards, it just seems like too much of a shame to cover them up. They're never going to look like perfect, brand-new hardwood floors and we know that. But they're real, they are what they are, because the house is what it is. They're the history of the house, you know? Glad my boyfriend and I are on the same page with this! He was even pushing harder for refinishing them than me, the history major/history teacher!! I think he just wants an excuse to buy a sander to use on other projects too

So, thank you all so much for your advice and guidance, it has been invaluable, and I'm sure I will be back for more shortly!!

[Manalto]

One of the lead guys is a former contractor, he said we were taking on a big job and he would just go over the floors with new stuff...

He's a typical contractor for whom time is money. I suspect the only contractors who make money from historic renovation either take his approach or are meticulous preservationists who command astronomical fees.

I was fortunate to find a tile guy who has a reputation for beautiful, precise work (...and his prices certainly reflect it, but hey, it's my primary bathroom and I've waited three years for this. Let's just say it's my Christmas present to myself.) but he also has an appreciation for historical materials and the patina of age. This is rare. Most craftsmen want to make everything new. I introduced my tile guy to the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi and he was delighted. It validated and gave a label to a perspective he already possessed. The School of Life has a nice video on this:
https://youtu.be/QmHLYhxYVjA

It's disappointing to see people buy beautiful historic houses and gut them unnecessarily, obliterating the materials (rare exceptions like lead notwithstanding) and character that made the house attractive in the first place and replacing them with toxic, ordinary materials.

[Catheetiem]

One of the lead guys is a former contractor, he said we were taking on a big job and he would just go over the floors with new stuff...

He's a typical contractor for whom time is money. I suspect the only contractors who make money from historic renovation either take his approach or are meticulous preservationists who command astronomical fees.

I was fortunate to find a tile guy who has a reputation for beautiful, precise work (...and his prices certainly reflect it, but hey, it's my primary bathroom and I've waited three years for this. Let's just say it's my Christmas present to myself.) but he also has an appreciation for historical materials and the patina of age. This is rare. Most craftsmen want to make everything new. I introduced my tile guy to the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi and he was delighted. It validated and gave a label to a perspective he already possessed. The School of Life has a nice video on this:
https://youtu.be/QmHLYhxYVjA

It's disappointing to see people buy beautiful historic houses and gut them unnecessarily, obliterating the materials (rare exceptions like lead notwithstanding) and character that made the house attractive in the first place and replacing them with toxic, ordinary materials.

Yes, we think he was in kind of contractor "manage expectations" mode, and might have thought we were expecting our floors to be like flawless, brand new ones. Of course, that's not what we expect and not really what we want either. My boyfriend works in auto body and I had mentioned that to them. When the contractor guy said he would just go over it with new flooring rather than refinishing, the other guy jumped in and said "well, if there's one person who can do it, it's the auto body guy!!" so I'm taking his approach haha.

I was wondering if you might be able to offer any advice here, just for my peace of mind, do you think polyurethane is suitable to seal in any possible remaining lead dust in the floors? The lead guys had said it would seal it but looking online I don't see that recommendation, and actually see a clear lead encapsulant product (it's very expensive, like over $100 a gallon). Is that something we should be using, or is the polyurethane fine?

Yes, I can't imagine anyone's making money on historic renovations unless they're charging something way beyond a normal contractor. Good that you've found someone though, and congratulations on your bathroom!! Merry Christmas!!!!! I find myself appreciating wabi-sabi as well, and will be checking out the video!!

And yeah, absolutely, it's such a shame to see. In our house search we saw so many historic homes that had anything interesting taken out of them. Laminate floors everywhere (especially that awful "wood" gray one that's everywhere now, new trim, vinyl siding, tiny vinyl windows, just totally devoid of any character. Really so disappointing.

[CleavesHouse]

...do you think polyurethane is suitable to seal in any possible remaining lead dust in the floors? The lead guys had said it would seal it but looking online I don't see that recommendation, and actually see a clear lead encapsulant product (it's very expensive, like over $100 a gallon). Is that something we should be using, or is the polyurethane fine?

I believe the lead encapsulant is intended to be applied over an intact painted surface where the paint is known to contain lead. I don't think it is necessary for your floors. If you mop and hepa vacuum before and after sanding your floors (at least the hepa vacuuming, maybe not the mopping after sanding), then the polyurethane likely should seal any remaining lead dust, I would think. None-the-less, it would probably be prudent to wear good dust masks and ventilate well when you are "sanding" or "polishing" the polyurethane between coats (you are going to do 3 to 5 coats, right?), just in case any remaining lead dust migrated to the top of your finish, to be released into the air again by your between-coats "sanding."