Irvington, Hawthorne, Sellwood, Ladd's Addition, Northeast Alberta — Portland's most architecturally rich neighborhoods are also its oldest, and many of the Craftsmans, Colonials, and Victorian-era homes there were painted before lead was banned from residential paint in 1978. If your home was built before that year, it is worth understanding the rules — both for your family's safety and for your legal protection when you hire a contractor.
Lead-based paint in good condition and left undisturbed is generally not a health hazard. The risk comes from disturbance: sanding, scraping, cutting, or heat-stripping, which creates dust and chips that settle on surfaces and soil and can be ingested or inhaled. Children under 6 and pregnant women are the most vulnerable — lead exposure at those developmental stages has no safe lower threshold.
What the EPA RRP rule says
The EPA's Renovation, Repair, and Painting (RRP) rule applies to any contractor disturbing painted surfaces in a pre-1978 home, child-occupied facility, or school. "Disturbance" is defined as more than 6 square feet of interior painted surface or 20 square feet of exterior. The rule requires the contractor to: be certified (not just the company but the lead renovator on site), provide the homeowner with the EPA's "Renovate Right" pamphlet before work begins, set up and maintain containment to prevent lead dust from spreading, and clean and verify the work area using a wet-wipe method.
Oregon follows the federal EPA rule — there is no stricter state standard that supersedes it, but there's also no weaker one. The homeowner cannot waive the requirement. And critically: if a contractor does non-compliant RRP work in your home, the enforcement action can involve the homeowner as well as the contractor, particularly if you knew or should have known the rules applied.
Testing before work
Contractors are not required to test for lead before working — only to assume it is present if the home predates 1978 and proceed accordingly. Testing before work is optional but recommended. An XRF (X-ray fluorescence) test is performed by a certified lead inspector and is non-destructive; a paint chip test collected and sent to an accredited lab is less expensive but requires disturbing the surface to sample. If testing confirms lead is absent in the areas being disturbed, RRP procedures are not required.
What to ask your painter
Before any contractor begins sanding, scraping, or stripping in a pre-1978 Portland home: ask to see their EPA RRP certification and verify the certified renovator will be on site (not just a company certification). Ask what containment they will set up, how they will verify cleanup, and whether they carry documentation of the work for your records. A contractor who says "don't worry about it" is telling you something important about how they work.
Portland has beautiful old housing stock. The right painter takes the lead paint rules seriously not because inspectors are watching but because the people in the house deserve it.