Home Renovations and Your Health

What to Do Before Renovating Your Home

Thinking about renovating your home? If you are a do-it-yourselfer or hiring a professional, there are some health precautions you should know about before you begin a renovation project.

Exposure to lead and asbestos can harm your health. To keep families in Vermont safe, the state has laws for renovation work on homes. These laws help reduce the risk of being exposed to lead and asbestos during home renovation projects.

Lead-Safe Work Practices: Renovating, Repairing and Painting a Pre-1978 Home

Lead is a highly toxic metal that was used in house paint until 1978. By Vermont law, you must assume lead-based paint – including any paint, coating, stain or seal – is in all homes built before 1978.

Lead-based paint becomes hazardous when it is disturbed, creating lead dust that can be breathed in or swallowed. This exposure can cause lead poisoning and permanent health effects. Lead is especially harmful to children and people who are pregnant. Learn more about lead poisoning

If you are hiring a contractor

If your home was built before 1978, hire a Vermont Licensed Lead-Safe RRPM Firm to do any renovation or repair work. These trained contractors use special methods to minimize dust and to clean up thoroughly.

Follow these steps to make sure your contractor is lead-safe licensed

If you are a landlord, Vermont law requires you to comply with the Inspection, Repair and Cleaning (IRC) Practices.

If you are doing the work yourself

There are no lead licensing or permitting requirements for you to do work on your own home. However, you should follow lead-safe work practices and never use prohibited practices.

Unsafe work practices that disturb lead-based paint will create lead hazards (see Section 2.2.28). Under Vermont law, if you use unsafe work practices and create lead hazard, you may be responsible for the cleanup, which will require you to hire a Vermont-licensed contractor.

Watch the video below for tips on how to paint, repair, and do home improvements in a lead-safe way.

Asbestos in Building Materials

Asbestos is a mineral fiber that is used in many types of building construction materials (for example, insulation, joint compound, drywall, popcorn ceilings, tiles, roofing and other materials). Even newer buildings can have asbestos-containing materials. By Vermont law, you must assume asbestos-containing materials are in your home.

Asbestos-containing materials are not dangerous unless they are damaged in a way that creates dust. If they are not handled properly during renovation, repair or demolition work, asbestos fibers can be released into the air.

Anyone can be exposed to asbestos by breathing in asbestos fibers. Exposure to asbestos fibers increases your risk of having serious health effects — such as lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.

Find out what you need to do before beginning a renovation, repair or demolition