The spotlight shines brightly on asbestos when homeowners and professionals start undertaking renovations and home repairs. It’s one of the most common hazardous building materials and one that is responsible for around 90,000 deaths every year.

While there’s every reason for educational awareness surrounding asbestos and its testing and removal to continue, let’s not forget the potential problematic hazardous materials other than asbestos.

Lead-Based Paint

Lead is a chemical element found in paint that can cause poisoning in adults and children. While it poses a minimal risk when the paint is in good condition on or in your home, it can result in a serious illness when unsafe removal of that paint occurs.

Lead-based paint was standard throughout New Zealand up until 1965. Paint applied before 1945 also contained lead more often than not. While it still exists in paint today, it’s only in special-purpose paint and is clearly labelled.

What is Lead Poisoning?

Lead poisoning results from exposure to lead in soil, paint dust, or paint flakes. It can present as difficulty sleeping, constipation, loss of appetite, stomach pains, or no symptoms at all. If left untreated, lead poisoning can cause brain damage and even death.

How to Remove Lead-Based Paint Safely

We’re a nation of DIYers, which is why many of us like to get stuck in and take care of painting and decorating ourselves. While you can do that legally with the removal of lead-based paint, it does pay to take precautions. 

In each room where you’re removing lead-based paint, remove all the curtains and furniture. Cover the carpets and clean surfaces thoroughly once the paint has been removed. Dispose of the paint on the drop sheet safely in your wheelie bin or at your local rubbish tip.

If you remove lead paint outside your home, keep windows and doors closed to prevent paint from entering your home. Use a groundsheet on the area you’re stripping, and make sure you collect all paint flakes.

Don’t forget to wear appropriate PPE throughout the removal process, such as a toxic dust respirator that meets NZ Standard AS/NZS 1716:2012.

Dux Quest Piping

While Dux Quest piping isn’t a hazardous building material, it is a problematic one. It was used in homes throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During that time, it was discovered that pipes and their fittings were bursting. It was no longer used, and homeowners were urged to replace all their Dux Quest piping with other products. 

Now, many insurers won’t cover damage caused by that form of piping. It’s easily noticeable by its black colouring and white branded lettering printed on it.

Weatherside Building Materials

In the early 1980s, Weatherside was a popular cladding material. It was affordable and attractive – two things that many homeowners and builders loved. But like asbestos, it soon showed its true colours.

This building material isn’t hazardous, but it is troublesome. As it contains wood and glue, the failure of that glue can cause moisture to access the wood fibres. Before long, the cladding can swell, delaminate, and become a pile of mush.

When this problem became known, it was withdrawn from the market, and homeowners could access funds to replace their cladding. However, some homeowners didn’t replace their cladding. The Weatherside then had the potential to become a problem for whoever purchased the home after them.

If you’re not sure if your property contains Weatherside, there are a few ways to identify it:  

• Thicker than HardiPlank

• It has metal joiners, rather than plastic

• The nails don’t protrude out of the cladding. Instead, they sit flush.

Mercury

Mercury isn’t a building material, but it’s a dangerous substance that’s common in the average home. When contained within products such as a thermometer, thermostat, or barometer, it poses no danger. However, if you happen to break a thermometer, it can be incredibly toxic to the home’s occupants.

You can’t easily absorb liquid mercury through your skin, but it vaporises at room temperature. As a result, you can inhale it, and that’s where the hazard lies. Surprisingly, swallowing mercury, such as through a broken thermometer in your mouth, isn’t dangerous as your gut can’t absorb it.

If you have broken something containing up to a quarter of a teaspoon of mercury, you may be able to manage the spill yourself. However, an amount larger than that will require a professional hazardous waste disposal company to take care of it.

Immediately clear and ventilate the room in which the mercury has spilled. Keep children and pets out of the area, and open all windows in that room for a minimum of 24 hours. Turn off heating and air conditioning to prevent the vaporised form of mercury from travelling throughout the house.

Cleaning Up a Mercury Spill

Put on rubber gloves and old clothing and footwear you don’t mind throwing away. Anything that gets mercury on it should be thrown out rather than washed. Don’t use household cleaners or vacuum cleaners to clean up the spill. Instead, purchase a mercury spill kit from a safety equipment shop. 

Alternatively, invest in an eyedropper to pick up the mercury, a plastic container with a lid, bags you can seal contaminated items in, and tape or cardboard to help pick up mercury beads. Shine a torch on the area to reflect the spilled beads of mercury. You can also use powdered sulphur to bind tiny beads together for easier removal from surfaces.  

Asbestos is Not the Only Household Hazard

Many homeowners are slowly learning about the importance of asbestos testing and removal. However, there are still plenty of other household hazards and problematic building materials to be aware of. Who knew that so many things are lurking in our homes that could pose a risk to our health?