Encapsulating Lead Paint

Clip Summary

Cole Stanton (from Fiberlock) joins Bob to talk about Child Guard, an encapsulating coating for lead-based paint. Lead encapsulating is an alternative to stripping lead-based paint. It's a safer option to removal, as it doesn't generate the same volume of lead dust. Also, it's far less expensive.

To prepare the surface of the window trim, Cole has taken a few of the lead-safe wipes and removed a lot of dust from the trim. The wipes are presoaked in TSP (Tri-Sodium Phosphate), a heavy-duty cleaner, which is good at solubilizing and lifting lead dust. Because the coating of Child Guard should be applied at 7/1000s of an inch thick dry, it should easily hide nicks and bruises in the woodwork. It is easy to measure the thickness of a wet coat of paint, using a wet film thickness gauge.

Measuring is important, because the encapsulants are tested and certified to meet the requirements for making lead paint safe in all 50 states, but only at a certain thickness.

Child Guard is a Thermoplastic Elastomeric Copolymer. It's water-based and cleans off with soap and water.