Painting Services

About L&E’s Painting Division

L&E’s crew is a group of expert craftsman who are extensively trained, professional and courteous. The head of our painting division brings over ten years of professional experience. Each team member is thoroughly screened, including a criminal background check. We pride ourselves in offering clients high-quality results at affordable prices and taking the time to get the job done right.

Most importantly, L&E is an EPA Lead Certified firm.

As of April 2010, Federal law requires renovation contractors and painters to be certified and to use lead-safe work practices. Take a moment and read why it is so important to have a Lead Specialist working on your property, the newly regulated precautions you can expect from L&E. Read more below.

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What it means to be a Lead Certified firm:

As of April 2010, Federal law requires renovation contractors and painters to be certified and to use lead-safe work practices. Common renovation activities like sanding, cutting, and demolition can create hazardous lead dust and chips by disturbing lead-based paint, which can be harmful to adults and children.

Professional Lead Guidelines:

Those who must be certified:
• Renovation contractors
• Maintenance workers in multi-family housing
• Painters and other specialty trades
• Window replacement contractors

Contractors must follow these three simple procedures:
• Contain the work area.
• Minimize dust.
• Clean up thoroughly.

Contractors who perform renovation, repairs, and painting jobs should also:
• Train to perform lead-safe work practices.
• Provide a copy of your EPA or state lead training certificate to your client.
• Tell clients what lead-safe methods will be used on the job.
• Ask clients to share the results of any previously conducted lead tests.
• Learn lead laws that apply to you regarding certification and lead-safe work practices beginning April 22, 2010.
• Provide your client with references from at least three recent jobs involving homes built before 1978.
• Keep records that workers have been trained in lead-safe work practices and follow lead-safe work practices.

Protect your family. Only hire a contractor who is in a Lead-Safe Certified Firm.

Renovating Guide for Clients:
• Steps to Lead Safe Renovation, Repair and Painting; Guide to Renovating Right:
(Download PDF) (34 pp, 2.5MB) | en español (Download PDF) (34 pp, 1.3MB).

Why Do You Need to Be Concerned About Lead?

Lead is a toxic metal that was used for many years in products found in and around our homes. Lead also can be emitted into the air from motor vehicles and industrial sources, and lead can enter drinking water from plumbing materials. Lead may cause a range of health effects, from behavioral problems and learning disabilities, to seizures and death. Children six years old and under are most at risk.

Most Common Sources of Lead Poisoning:
• Deteriorating lead-based paint
• Lead contaminated dust
• Lead contaminated residential soil

Facts About Lead:

• Lead exposure can harm young children and babies even before they are born.
• Even children who seem healthy can have high levels of lead in their bodies.
• You can get lead in your body by breathing or swallowing lead dust, or by eating soil or paint chips containing lead.
• You have many options for reducing lead hazards. In most cases, lead-based paint that is in good condition is not a hazard.
• Removing lead-based paint improperly can increase the danger to your family.

Health Effects of Lead:
Childhood lead poisoning remains a major environmental health problem in the United States.
• People can get lead in their body if they:
- Put their hands or other objects covered with lead dust in their mouths.
- Eat paint chips or soil that contains lead.
- Breathe in lead dust, especially during renovations that disturb painted surfaces.
• Lead is more dangerous to children because:
- Babies and young children often put their hands and other objects in their mouths. These objects can have lead dust on them.
- Children’s growing bodies absorb more lead.
- Children’s brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead.
• If not detected early, children with high levels of lead in their bodies can suffer from:
- Damage to the brain and nervous system
- Behavior and learning problems, such as hyperactivity
- Slowed growth
- Hearing problems
- Headaches
• Lead is also harmful to adults. Adults can suffer from:
- Reproductive problems (in both men and women)
- High blood pressure and hypertension
- Nerve disorders
- Memory and concentration problems
- Muscle and joint pain

Are you renovating, repairing or painting a home, child care facility or school built before 1978?
Beginning April 22, 2010, federal law requires that contractors performing renovation, repair and painting projects that disturb more than six square feet of paint in homes, child care facilities, and schools built before 1978 must be certified and trained to follow specific work practices to prevent lead contamination.

Where Lead is Found:
• Paint. Many homes built before 1978 have lead-based paint. The federal government banned lead-based paint from housing in 1978. Some states stopped its use even earlier. Lead can be found:
- In homes in the city, country, or suburbs.
- In apartments, single-family homes, and both private and public housing.
- Inside and outside of the house.
• In soil around a home. Soil can pick up lead from exterior paint, or other sources such as past use of leaded gas in cars, and children playing in yards can ingest or inhale lead dust.
• Household dust. Dust can pick up lead from deteriorating lead-based paint or from soil tracked into a home.
• Drinking water. Your home might have plumbing with lead or lead solder. Call your local health department or water supplier to find out about testing your water. You cannot see, smell or taste lead, and boiling your water will not get rid of lead. If you think your plumbing might have lead in it:
- Use only cold water for drinking and cooking.
- Run water for 15 to 30 seconds before drinking it, especially if you have not used your water for a few hours.
• The job. If you work with lead, you could bring it home on your hands or clothes. Shower and change clothes before coming home. Launder your work clothes separately from the rest of your family’s clothes.
• Old painted toys and furniture.
• Food and liquids stored in lead crystal or lead-glazed pottery or porcelain. Food can become contaminated because lead can leach in from these containers.
• Lead smelters or other industries that release lead into the air.
• Hobbies that use lead, such as making pottery or stained glass, or refinishing furniture.
• Folk remedies that contain lead, such as “greta” and “azarcon” used to treat an upset stomach.

Where lead is likely to be a hazard:
Lead from paint chips, which you can see, and lead dust, which you can’t always see, can be serious hazards.
• Peeling, chipping, chalking, or cracking lead-based paint is a hazard and needs immediate attention.
• Lead-based paint may also be a hazard when found on surfaces that children can chew or that get a lot of wear-and-tear. These areas include:
- Windows and window sills.
- Doors and door frames.
- Stairs, railings, and banisters.
- Porches and fences.

Lead-based paint that is in good condition is usually not a hazard.
• Lead dust can form when lead-based paint is dry scraped, dry sanded, or heated. Dust also forms when painted surfaces bump or rub together. Lead chips and dust can get on surfaces and objects that people touch. Settled lead dust can re-enter the air when people vacuum, sweep or walk through it.
• Lead in soil can be a hazard when children play in bare soil or when people bring soil into the house on their shoes. Contact the National Lead Information Center (NLIC) to find out about testing soil for lead.
• Additional steps:
- You can temporarily reduce lead hazards by taking actions such as repairing damaged painted surfaces and planting grass to cover soil with high lead levels. These actions are not permanent solutions and will need ongoing attention.
- To permanently remove lead hazards, you must hire a certified lead “abatement” contractor. Abatement (or permanent hazard elimination) methods include removing, sealing, or enclosing lead-based paint with special materials. Just painting over the hazard with regular paint is not enough.
- Always hire a person with special training for correcting lead problems — someone who knows how to do this work safely and has the proper equipment to clean up thoroughly. Certified contractors will employ qualified workers and follow strict safety rules set by their state or the federal government.
- Contact the National Lead Information Center (NLIC) for help with locating certified contractors in your area and to see if financial assistance is available.

What is Abatement?
Abatement means any measure or set of measures designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards. Abatement includes, but is not limited to:
1. The removal of lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust, the permanent enclosure or encapsulation of lead-based paint, the replacement of lead-painted surfaces or fixtures, and the removal or covering of lead contaminated soil; and
2. All preparation, cleanup, disposal, and post-abatement clearance testing activities associated with such measures.
3. Specifically, abatement includes, but is not limited to:
• Projects for which there is a written contract or other documentation, which provides that an individual or firm will be conducting activities in or to a residential dwelling or child-occupied facility that:
• Shall result in the permanent elimination of lead-based paint hazards; or
• Are designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards and are described in paragraphs (1) and (2) of this definition.
- Projects resulting in the permanent elimination of lead-based paint hazards, conducted by firms or individuals certified in accordance with § 745.226, unless such projects are covered by paragraph (4) of this definition;
- Projects resulting in the permanent elimination of lead-based paint hazards, conducted by firms or individuals who, through their company name or promotional literature, represent, advertise, or hold themselves out to be in the business of performing lead-based paint activities as identified and defined by this section, unless such projects are covered by paragraph (4) of this definition; or
- Projects resulting in the permanent elimination of lead-based paint hazards, that are conducted in response to state or local abatement orders.
4. Abatement does not include renovation, remodeling, landscaping or other activities, when such activities are not designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards, but, instead, are designed to repair, restore, or remodel a given structure or dwelling, even though these activities may incidentally result in a reduction or elimination of lead-based paint hazards. Furthermore, abatement does not include interim controls, operations and maintenance activities, or other measures and activities designed to temporarily, but not permanently, reduce lead-based paint hazards.
What is the purpose of EPA’s lead-based paint activities regulation?
These regulations protect the public from hazards of improperly conducted lead-based paint activities. They contain several elements, including:
• Training and certification requirements to ensure the proficiency of contractors who offer to conduct lead-based paint inspection, risk assessment and abatement services in residences and day care centers
• Accreditation requirements to ensure that training programs provide quality instruction in current and effective work practices
• Work practice standards to ensure that lead-based paint activities are conducted safely, reliably and effectively
These regulations apply to lead-based paint activities in target housing and child-occupied facilities. Lead-based paint activities include inspection, risk assessment, and abatement.