DIY Lead Paint Testing using lead swabs

 It can be really hard to find good resources on how to test for lead. Today, I want to share some pictures I took when I was testing the doors in our old rental house for lead. I used the lead swabs you can get at your local home improvement store. They are about $25 for a pack of 6 and my experience was that each pack has at least one dud that is totally dried out. There is another type of kit available that has containers of liquid you mix together and then add a bit of whatever you are testing. It is a bit like testing the water in a pool. You wait for a bit and then compare the color of the liquid to a card they give you. This kit is harder and more time consuming, but I found it useful to test the enamel that was flaking off an old porcelain wall heater. Unfortunately, I don't have pics of that, so these pictures are all of using lead swabs to test a couple of old doors.

 To use the swabs, you need to burst the little glass bubble of liquid inside it by squeezing it and then you shake it up. You test by rubbing in a circular motion on the area you want to test. If it turns bright pink, you found lead.

 These two pictures are of the same door. The minty green color paint does contain lead. The first picture is of actually testing the door one night and the second picture is the next morning. WARNING: this bright pink reaction that occurs between the swab and lead paint does not come off. It will stain the door. It actually gets brighter as it sits there.

This is a bad spot to have lead. In general, if lead paint is covered up and intact (not peeling), you are relatively safe, but on areas of friction like this door, it is a problem. Every time this door is opened and closed, the friction between the door and frame will cause lead dust to be released into the air and settle on your stuff where you can ingest it. 

 Using the lead swab on a different door. On this door, the old green paint was not visible like it was on the other door. The back and sides of the door had been painted a very dark brown and the inside was left white. I had suspicions about this door because it was the same age as the first door that tested positive. You can see that the reaction is not as quick or as bright because the white paint is over the green lead paint.

 This is the next day. As I said, this stains the paint on the door!

 This is testing a third door just so you can see more of what positive reactions look like. In all, there were 5 doors in this house that had lead paint on them. Only one had actual peeling paint and that was on the outside of the door.