Can you just pressure wash the paint off?

Probably nobody should, and the Forest Products Laboratory explains why. If high pressure is what it takes to move the paint, the paint is probably still bonded and probably does not need to come off before you repaint. That pressure also erodes the soft bands of the wood faster than the hard ones, so you end up with a ridged board that takes the next coat worse than the one you started with. If the paint is already failing, that is a different conversation and worth having at the estimate.

Is it illegal to pressure wash lead paint?

No, and it is worth being precise. The federal rule's prohibited list is open-flame burning or torching, high-speed paint-removal machines that are not HEPA-shrouded, and heat guns at or above 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Pressure washing is not on it, and the EPA has published guidance for doing it with the area isolated so that nothing leaves it, debris in the waste water included. But the Forest Products Laboratory says power washing is not suitable for lead paint, so being permitted does not make it right.

My building is older than 1978. Does the rule apply?

It depends on what the building is, not only on how old it is. The rule reaches pre-1978 housing and buildings a young child attends regularly, with carve-outs for elderly and disabled housing where no child under six lives, and for zero-bedroom units. A pre-1978 warehouse or retail strip sits outside it. That is not a free pass, though: OSHA's lead-in-construction standard applies to construction work wherever lead exposure is possible, regardless of the building's age or who uses it.

What about painted concrete or block?

That is the work this page is about. Masonry has no soft and hard growth bands to erode at different rates, so the wood objection does not carry over, and a coating that has already lost its grip is a different job from one that is still holding. The lead question does not change, though — it follows the building rather than the surface. If the building is pre-1978 housing, the job goes to a firm certified under the rule instead of to us.

Exterior paint removal

This is the page most likely to talk you out of the work. The Forest Products Laboratory's position is that if it takes high pressure to strip paint, the paint probably does not need stripping — and that the pressure can easily erode the wood underneath, unevenly enough to make it harder to repaint afterwards. On older buildings, what happens next is decided by a federal rule rather than by our preference. So the honest version of this service is a narrow one, and the first thing to establish is which side of that line your building is on.

If it takes pressure, it probably should not come off

Start with the finding that bears on these jobs. The Forest Products Laboratory — the wood research arm of the US Department of Agriculture — puts it plainly: if high pressure is necessary to remove paint, the paint probably does not need to be removed before refinishing. Read that the way it is meant. The machine is not only the tool for the job, it is also the test. Paint that resists the pressure is paint that is still bonded, and paint that is still bonded is a surface you prepare and repaint, not a surface you strip. The second half of the finding is what it costs to ignore the first. That same pressure, the laboratory says, can easily cause deep erosion of the wood. And the erosion is not even. A board is built of alternating bands — the lighter, softer wood the tree laid down early in the season and the denser wood it laid down late — and the water takes the soft bands faster. What you are left with is not a clean bare board. It is a ridged one, the hard bands standing proud of the soft, and the laboratory's description of those ridges is that they are difficult to repaint. So the machine that took the paint off has left the surface worse at holding the next coat.

Two opposite beliefs about lead paint, both wrong

Two things about lead paint are worth checking against the source. The first: that the EPA prohibits pressure washing lead paint. It does not. The work-practice section of the federal Renovation, Repair and Painting rule prohibits open-flame burning or torching of a painted surface outright, prohibits high-speed paint-removal machines unless they are HEPA-shrouded, and caps heat guns below 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Pressure washing is not on that list, and the EPA has published guidance on how it is done under the rule — the work area isolated so that no dust or debris leaves it, and the guidance says in as many words that this includes debris carried in the waste water. The second belief is the inverse, and it is the more dangerous of the two: that contained therefore means fine. The Forest Products Laboratory states flatly that power washing and sandblasting are not suitable for paint containing lead. Permitted and appropriate are separate questions, and the answer to one is not the answer to the other. The laboratory also advises assuming that old paint contains lead and taking precautions on that basis, and lead paint debris is hazardous waste, which is a disposal problem before it is anything else. Both halves hold at once: it can be legal with containment and still be the wrong tool.

What the federal rule covers, and what it does not

This is the correction that matters most, because getting it wrong in either direction sends somebody to the wrong contractor. The Renovation, Repair and Painting rule does not cover every building put up before 1978. It applies to paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing and in buildings a young child attends regularly. The housing definition carves out housing for the elderly or disabled where no child under six lives, and it carves out zero-bedroom units. The child-occupied side means a pre-1978 building the same child under six visits on a schedule the rule spells out: at least two days a week, three hours at a time, six hours in a week, sixty hours in a year. Which means a warehouse or a retail strip from that era is genuinely outside the rule. Now the other half. OSHA's lead-in-construction standard has no such limits. It applies to all construction work where lead exposure is possible, whatever the building's age and whoever occupies it, and its exposure limit is 50 micrograms of lead in a cubic metre of air averaged over eight hours. It names manual scraping, manual sanding, heat-gun work and power-tool cleaning as tasks presumed to exceed that limit. Being outside the EPA rule never means nothing applies. It means something else applies.

What we take on, and where we hand it off

We do exterior paint and coating removal where lead is not the question. Newer buildings. Previously painted concrete, block and masonry. Coatings that have already failed — lifting, chalking, letting go at the edges — on surfaces that are not pre-1978 housing. On masonry there are no soft and hard growth bands to erode at different rates, so the Forest Products Laboratory's objection to the method does not carry across; what does carry across is the first question, which is whether the coating is failing or whether you simply dislike it. Where the federal lead rule applies we say so at the estimate, and the rule decides who may do the work. That is not modesty. The rule requires firm certification and trained renovators, and it sets out what isolating an exterior job means: doors and windows within twenty feet closed, the ground covered with impermeable sheeting running ten feet past the perimeter, vertical containment where the work comes within ten feet of a property line. There is a minor-repair exemption for exterior work at twenty square feet or less of disturbed painted surface, and it is void the moment a prohibited practice is used. That job belongs with a contractor certified under the rule. We claim no certification of our own, and nobody should take a contractor at their word on one — ours included.

Common questions

Can you just pressure wash the paint off?: Probably nobody should, and the Forest Products Laboratory explains why. If high pressure is what it takes to move the paint, the paint is probably still bonded and probably does not need to come off before you repaint. That pressure also erodes the soft bands of the wood faster than the hard ones, so you end up with a ridged board that takes the next coat worse than the one you started with. If the paint is already failing, that is a different conversation and worth having at the estimate.
Is it illegal to pressure wash lead paint?: No, and it is worth being precise. The federal rule's prohibited list is open-flame burning or torching, high-speed paint-removal machines that are not HEPA-shrouded, and heat guns at or above 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Pressure washing is not on it, and the EPA has published guidance for doing it with the area isolated so that nothing leaves it, debris in the waste water included. But the Forest Products Laboratory says power washing is not suitable for lead paint, so being permitted does not make it right.
My building is older than 1978. Does the rule apply?: It depends on what the building is, not only on how old it is. The rule reaches pre-1978 housing and buildings a young child attends regularly, with carve-outs for elderly and disabled housing where no child under six lives, and for zero-bedroom units. A pre-1978 warehouse or retail strip sits outside it. That is not a free pass, though: OSHA's lead-in-construction standard applies to construction work wherever lead exposure is possible, regardless of the building's age or who uses it.
What about painted concrete or block?: That is the work this page is about. Masonry has no soft and hard growth bands to erode at different rates, so the wood objection does not carry over, and a coating that has already lost its grip is a different job from one that is still holding. The lead question does not change, though — it follows the building rather than the surface. If the building is pre-1978 housing, the job goes to a firm certified under the rule instead of to us.

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