OAKLAND — When planning for a house painting project, a crucial concern to keep in mind is lead safety. Any house built prior to 1978 has the potential to contain lead-based paint; even if more recent layers of paint don’t contain lead, the lower layers likely do. So, when painting any pre-1978 home, it’s best to assume lead is present and take proper precautions. While this entails a bit of extra work, it’s worthwhile to keep yourself and your family safe from lead exposure. Follow these lead-safe painting guidelines:
Employ wet-sanding techniques. Use a mister to wet painted areas prior to sanding or scraping. Whereas dry sanding allows particles to enter the atmosphere, the introduction of moisture causes these particles to end up on the ground, keeping the air stream untainted.
Put up plastic. Cover the outsides of windows and tape the insides so no dust can get into the house. Also, put plastic down and duct tape it to your home’s exterior to collect fallen paint chips for disposal.
Wear safety gear. To prevent lead exposure, cover yourself head-to-toe with protective gear. Important components include protective eye wear, disposable coveralls, a disposable N-100 rated respirator, latex/rubber gloves and shoe covers. Seal any loose or exposed clothing seams with duct tape.
Have a designated clean-wash station. This will come in handy in the event of exposure.
Post notifications on the outside of your home. You have a responsibility to make people aware of the situation so they can keep their distance.
Obtain a lead safety booklet from the EPA. This will provide more information about the risks of lead exposure and lay out proper procedures for lead-safe painting.
If you decide to hire a painting company to handle your project, find one that’s EPA Lead-Safe Certified. Hiring a painter that’s trained in lead-safe procedures provides extra assurance that your project will be carried out in a safe, responsible manner.

Lead-Safe Paint Preparation

Learn essential tips for lead-safe paint preparation, ensuring a safer home renovation. Get expert advice on protecting your health during painting projects.

Lead-Safe Paint Preparation by Soumil Amin

by Soumil Amin, a Diamond Certified Expert Contributor

How To Paint Over Oil-Based Paint

Video: How to Repaint an Oil-Based Surface


When painting over an oil-based paint surface, it's important to employ the right technique. Today we're in Oakland with Diamond's certified expert contributor, Similameen of CertaPro Painters of Berkeley, to learn more.

I wanted to talk today about painting over oil-based paint. A lot of older homes have oil-based paints painted on the trim currently. Special technique to be able to paint over it. We usually recommend scuff sanding it. 220 grit sandpaper basically cuts up the surface, gets that top layer of gloss off the surface, allows the new paint to stick on there really well.

If it's an older home with lead-based paint, just be a little careful. We use a festival standards EPA certified. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the dust particulates get sucked into a HEPA vacuum. So just be aware that after the sanding scuffs standing - nothing too harsh. We like to prime it. We like to use an oil hybrid or an oil-based primer really sticks onto that hard surface, allows the new paint to stick. Benjamin Moore has a great product. It's called advanced. It's an oil leak fixed hybrid product, goes on really nicely and provides a really durable.



To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.



Video: Laser Cavity Detection

While x-rays are a valuable tool for identifying cavities, many dentists are turning to a technological innovation that allows for earlier detection. Today, we're in Walnut Creek with Diamond Certified expert contributor Dr. James Mattingly to learn more.

Hi, today we're going to be talking about dental lasers. I know that dentistry is a terribly exciting subject for all of you viewers, and I know I get excited about things like this, so we're going to talk a little bit today about this device that is a laser that helps detect tooth decay.

Traditionally, we as dentists always have to refer to either an x-ray, or we have to get our sharp little instruments and push on your teeth, and if we get a stick, then we know we have a cavity. Now these are still, of course, very valuable tools for detecting tooth decay, but what's so neat about the lasers here, like this one, is it will detect the cavity when it's very, very small, even before I can usually stick into the cavity. The laser will detect it.

This laser uses what we call light fluorescence, and so it's very simple for the patient and the dentist. All we're doing is calibrating the unit and then shining the laser light on the chewing surfaces of the teeth. What we find is that eighty percent of all cavities are detected on the chewing surfaces of the tooth, and so that's where we're shining the light, and we have a certain range of numbers. So when we shine the light, if the corresponding number falls within a certain range, we know the tooth is healthy, and if it falls within a higher range, we know there's a cavity. So very simple, non-biased, and highly accurate.

I've done hundreds if not thousands of cavities have been diagnosed with this unit in my office, and honestly, every single one of those cavities when we've gone to fill it, it's always presented as an actual true cavity once I started drilling it out. So I have one hundred percent confidence in this unit, and that's a wonderful piece of technology to help make dentistry easier for the patient, which is the bottom line.

So thanks so much, and next time we'll have another great tip in the wonderful wide world of dentistry. To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.

Video: Lead-Safe Painting Procedure

If you're unsure whether your house paint contains lead, it's best to take full precautions and employ lead-safe procedures. Today, we're in Oakland with Diamond Certified expert contributors, the male a mean of certaPro Painters of Berkeley, to learn what this entails.

So, today I'm going to talk about the importance of lead safety when doing any remodeling and renovation around your home. Not only when you do the work yourself, but if a licensed contractor, anybody's doing work on the home for you, you should make sure you follow the proper steps.

Lead safety is very important. Any amount of blood in your system is not healthy. It's not supposed to be there. Any house that was built before 1978 has the potential for having lead-based paint. Even if the top layer is more recently layers levels of paint that were put on there did not have it on their lower levels probably well. So we assume that anything before 1978 has led and all the precautions need to be adhered to. It takes a little bit extra work, but they really come through in the end to make sure that people inside the house and people around the house are safe and taken care of.

Before anybody does work to your house, I should make sure they are fully EPA certified. There is a certification that you need to take in the refresher courses to make sure you're following of the proper guidelines and you know what you're doing. They should also be licensed with the state of California. They do checks background checks to make sure that they're qualified people and their know-how they're working on your house.

Typically on a house, there's a couple of areas that need to be concerned about. During the scraping phase, you need to do a wet scrape. We're basically what are the house down so the paint chips go straight down to the ground compared to getting into the air supply. You should cover the windows up with six mil plastic cover the outside of the window tape the inside of the window so that no dust can get inside the house. You should on the bottom of the house apply six mil plastic roll it out duct tape it to the house all the paint sticks that come up the house are collected in the plastic and you can dispose it up properly.

Notifications need to be put up so people in the house know what's happening everybody should be giving you a booklet from the EPA very simple booklet tells you what you need to know what the risks are and how things should be happening properly to ensure safety for everybody around the crew.

They should also be protected and safe, they should be wrapped head to toe with protective gear this is a spray sock that they put over their head these are goggles and this is a Tyvek suit so it goes full top-to-bottom protects everything and it gets duct-taped at the seams. Basically the point is that there's no part of your skin showing or anywhere that let chips can get inside.

There should be a clean wash station around there should be proper protocols taken to make sure that the employees are safe as well. So when you get any work done to your house make sure you check out the regulations and the people that are working there doing the work properly. To learn more from local top-rated companies visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at experts Diamond Certified org.

Video: Lead-Safe Painting Protocol



When repainting a home built prior to 1978, proper lead-safe protocol is a must. Today, we're in Oakland with Diamond Certified expert contributor Sammy Limine of CertaPro Painters of Berkeley to learn more. Today we're gonna be talking about lead-safe sanding and preparation procedures.

Any home that's built before 1978 has a potential for lead-based paint. It's a big deal. There's been a lot of research and developments on the effects of lead-based paint if it gets into your bloodstream or if it gets into the environment. So, proper procedures are important to do when you're preparing your home, whether you're doing it yourself or you're hiring a professional. Proper steps you should be taking.

First, you can check if they have tests that you can buy at the local paint store or hardware store and can test to see if the house actually has lead-based paint. Most of the time before 1978, you should assume that there is lead-based paint. So take all the proper precautions. Professionals need to have certification from the EPA in order to be renovating with lead-based paint surfaces. So if hiring a contractor, you should check into make sure that they have the certification and it's correct.

First up, you want to make sure there's a first aid kit on-site just in case anything happens. Standard safety procedures: goggles to protect your eyes, a spray sock which goes over your head, a good quality tie-back suit basically keeps all the particles away from you. You put spray socks on your shoes, you wrap yourself basically 100% so no contaminants can get inside of you as you're doing any work.

As this is going on, we have certain machines that help us do this work. This is a Festool sanding machine, proprietary brand. It's EPA certified to be able to sand a surface and it's 99.99% able to contain all the dust that comes out. So basically when you sand a surface compared to the sand getting into the air and all the debris getting into the air as with typical sanders, it has a HEPA vacuum attached to it, proper hoses and connectors to make sure 99.9% of all particles get into the properly sealed EPA certified HEPA bag and it's contained inside of the unit.

This is also a HEPA vacuum, it's a certified HEPA filter, certified HEPA vacuum which again uses the vacuum to bring in any particles or dust into it without anything getting into the environment. It is important to have the right equipment to be working with lead-based paint. A lot of harmful substances are inside your home built a long time ago; these can get into the ground areas, they get into your system, the neighbors, anybody that's walking down the streets. So having proper equipment on-site and doing the work in a correct manner, proper safety mechanisms for everybody around is a smart way to do the work.

And to learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.



Soumil Amin: In Living Color

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