I'm in love with a stripper. A paint stripper, that is.
While the interior rough-ins are being inspected, and while the insulation and drywall gets prepped, I decided it was time to strip down...the front of the house. The front of the house has about 12 inch planks of cypress which were in need of some sanding, repair, and repainting. So to begin this process, I had to use a tool which has made my life a little more bearable:
The Paint Shaver Pro.
In more brutish times, all a person might have to strip paint were some nasty chemicals, a heat gun, a 5-in-1, and/or a putty knife to agonizingly and painstakingly strip paint from boards. Last year, when I first used the Paint Shaver, a friend's dad looked longingly at the work the tool had done, saying, "I watched a guy spend two years with a heat gun and a putty knife scraping his house down to bare wood. And you just did about ten square feet in five minutes." Technology is fun.
The other thing to add to this story is that the sanding and scraping now have to be done in compliance with a recent EPA law which mandates certain precautions and methods for sanding or working on structures built before 1978. The issue is the risk of leaded paint in these older structures, and the concern that if proper measures are not taken, the chips and dust from renovating these structures could contaminate the area, or another area, with lead dust.
Last summer, I took a short course and received an EPA Lead Renovator certification in order to comply with these rules. Essentially, what it boils down to is making sure to properly lay down plastic sheeting, and when sanding or scraping, using a tool like the Paint Shaver in conjunction with a HEPA vacuum cleaner, so as to clean up any dust and paint shavings so that they may be properly disposed of. I tested the paint on the house that I was to sand, and although it did not indicate leaded paint was present, I wanted to take as many precautions as possible just to be sure. So I tented off the front of the house and laid poly sheeting down on the ground, put on my sanding space suit, and went to work. Be advised, if you wish to do this, try to wait until the fall or a particularly cool day. Doing this work in the beginning of the hot, humid New Orleans Summer is kind of insane and brutal.
Lead paint, and the effects of ingesting its dust and debris, is a huge problem in New Orleans. In recent months, testing of many parks and play areas has yielded high concentrations of lead, prompting park closures and remediation efforts to remove this substance from the soil. Many parents of small children, and many pet owners, have also found that their children, or pets, have high levels of lead in their bloodstream. Any concerned citizen, policymaker, or for that matter, any resident, is going to have to take this into consideration we wish to continue as a prominent and prosperous community. Removing the lead from our homes, businesses, and public areas must be a priority.
This brings me to a crazy idea I had: If lead is particularly good at protecting against radiation, why not sand down as many lead paint covered houses in New Orleans--and all over the country--collect this dust, and send it to Japan so as to help mitigate further spread of radiation from the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown? That way, they might be able to mix it into concrete or other building materials and prevent the already contaminate areas from leaking more radiation into surrounding communities or bodies of water.
Like I said, I'm not a scientist, and I also realize that it might sound horribly callous, but what else is there to do to solve both the problems of too much lead in our community and the radioactive areas near the Fukushima plant's meltdown?
Anyway, if anyone thinks it's a great idea or a stupid idea, or not even worth calling it an "idea," let me know.
As for the house, this is what the result of some Paint Shaver Pro action looks like:
