why lead paint levels under 1mg/cm are safe but over are dangerous

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Bought a 1920s home with lead a paint, had it professionally tested. Some rooms have high exposure 11-12 with XRF (obviously dangerous) while some areas have 0.2-0.5 positive levels but they say are safe even areas marked 0.9 +- 0.2. My wife thinks lead in the paint is still lead in the house and wants it all removed. Idk how to explain why the lower levels shouldn’t matter vs when the higher level are so toxic. While we don’t have kids now, she wants to get pregnant in about 6 months, so the lead exposure is weighing heavily on her thoughts and concerns right now.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

You will not get all of the lead out of your home. There will always be lead in your water, food, dirt, and so on. This lead accumulates in your body, so even smallish levels of exposure over time build up to larger amounts inside of you.

So, yes, any lead exposure is not good for you, but at very low levels it’s just insignificantly small amounts of bad for you, and it becomes impractical very fast to avoid *any exposure at all*.

I’m not familiar enough with residential lead testing to know what units you’re using here, but exposure depends a lot on where the lead is. Flaking paint that someone inhales or eats is a huge hazard compared to stable paint covered by a layer of leadless paint.

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