Lead Paint in Older Auckland Homes: What an Asbestos Survey Doesn't Test For

A refurbishment survey comes back and the news is good. No asbestos in the wet areas, nothing behind the tiles, the vinyl is clean. A week later someone is standing on a plank sanding 90 years of paint off the weatherboards with an orbital sander and no ground sheet. The survey did its job. It just wasn't looking for lead paint, because nobody asked it to.

Close that gap before the work starts. Asbestos and lead-based paint are both legacies of the same era of New Zealand building, they sit in the same houses, and the same trades disturb them on the same day. Only one has a licensing regime, a notice period and a clearance certificate behind it. The other depends on the person holding the sander knowing what is under the top coat.

One House, Two Legacy Materials, Two Different Sets of Rules

Asbestos in a renovation is tightly regulated. Licence classes for removal work, a written notice period, a control plan, and a clearance certificate before anyone re-enters the area. We set that whole sequence out in the Superior Renovations guide to asbestos and your Auckland renovation, including who carries the legal duty and what a positive result does to your programme.

Lead-based paint has none of that. No licence class, no statutory notice period, no clearance certificate. What exists instead is guidance: Guidelines for the Management of Lead-based Paint, revised in 2013 by the Ministry of Health and MBIE. WorkSafe still hosts it and attaches a plain caveat, that the guidance has not been updated to reflect the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and its regulations, though the practices in it remain relevant. So the practices are sound and specific, while the legal wrapper has moved on.

A duty question on your own job belongs with WorkSafe or the business doing the work.

The consequence for a homeowner is simple. With asbestos, the system stops the job until the paperwork exists. With lead paint, nothing stops the job. The decision sits inside your scope of works and your contractor's method, which is where you can still influence it.

"When a survey comes back clear, everyone hears 'the house is clean'. What it actually says is 'we didn't find asbestos in the areas we opened'. Lead is a different question and a different test. I would rather ask it at concept stage and forget about it than have a painter raise it in week three." — Dorothy Li, Design Manager, Superior Renovations

Which Auckland Houses Are Carrying Lead Paint

Health New Zealand puts the boundary plainly. Until 1965, many paints on the New Zealand market had high lead levels, and that was particularly true of pre-1945 paints. WorkSafe goes further on where to set your default: if a building was built in the 1980s or earlier, it is best to presume it has been painted with lead-based paint.

That nets a wide slice of the stock we work in. Villas in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby, bungalows in Mt Eden and Epsom, state houses in Papakura, brick-and-tile homes on the North Shore.

The Dates Behind the Materials

The 2013 guidelines are unusually specific about when each form of lead left domestic paint, and that detail changes where you look on a house, not just whether you look:

White lead and lead sulphate were used as white pigments in domestic paints until the mid-1960s. Before 1945, white lead was extensively used, then progressively replaced by titanium dioxide.
Lead chromate, the yellow pigment, was an ingredient in domestic paint until the late 1970s.
Red lead, a steel primer, is known to have been used as a wood primer until the 1980s. That one sits under the top coats on joinery and weatherboards.
Calcium plumbate was widely used as a roof coating for iron roofs from 1958.

A yellow feature wall in a 1976 house, a primer coat on 1930s weatherboards and an old iron roof are three reasons to test, on three parts of one job.

The Layers You Cannot See

Lead paint is not identifiable by appearance. Health New Zealand is explicit that even a recently painted building may have been painted with lead-based paints, or may carry layers of old paint under modern paint. Today only special-purpose paints contain lead, and those are clearly labelled.

So a fresh-looking house tells you nothing. Auckland weatherboards routinely carry eight or ten coats laid down over a century, and the modern acrylic on the outside is doing an excellent job of holding 1940s enamel in place. Sand or scrape through it and you are working with everything underneath. Older homes are slower to renovate for exactly this reason, which we cover in our guide to renovating an Auckland villa or bungalow properly.

Where It Turns Up in a Renovation Scope

Lead paint is not a demolition-day problem. It is a surface-preparation problem, which hands it to the finishing trades at both ends of a job:

Exterior repaint and prep. Sanding, scraping or blasting back weatherboards, fascia, barge boards and soffits.
Window and door replacement. Removing painted timber joinery, sanding the reveals and architraves that stay.
Recladding. Taking painted boards off the building, handling them, cutting them down to fit a skip. This is how taking the old cladding off an Auckland home actually runs.
Reroofing. Old coated iron, given calcium plumbate's long run from 1958 onward.
Interior make-good. Sanding skirtings, architraves, door jambs and old ceilings before repainting.

Most of that reads as the safe end of a renovation, and much of it runs while the family is back in the house. Some of it carries a second question too. Replacing joinery, taking cladding off or reroofing can involve building consent and restricted building work, which is a matter for Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner.

Testing Costs Almost Nothing, Which Is the Whole Point

Here is what surprises people who just paid for a survey. The basic lead test is chemistry you buy over a counter. The guidelines describe it directly: a drop of 5 per cent sodium sulphide solution applied to the paint, which turns brown or black if lead is present. Paint shops and some pharmacies sell the solution, some paint shops will test flakes in store and often for free, and public health units test paint flakes free of charge.

The method matters more than the chemical. You cut a 1 cm notch through to bare timber with a clean knife so the diagonal face of the notch exposes every layer, then rub the solution on with a cotton bud. Test only the top coat and you learn about the top coat, which is the coat least likely to contain lead.

The guidelines are honest about the limits. The solution deteriorates and should not be used beyond about three months, a brown-black positive is hard to read on dark paint, and the test is qualitative: it tells you whether lead is there, not how much. For that, paint flakes go to a recognised laboratory.

Set that beside asbestos, where Auckland Council does not test for the public and every sample goes to an accredited laboratory at a charge. For lead, a public health unit will do it for nothing.

The Removal Method Decides Whether You Have a Problem

Lead sitting in intact paint under sound top coats is a different proposition from lead in dust. The guidelines make that point squarely: lead-based paintwork becomes a hazard where paint is removed using an inappropriate method, where it was removed that way in the past and left contamination in house dust and soil, or where the paintwork has deteriorated into chalking and flaking.

Health New Zealand's method-by-method guidance is where the specification lives, and one line in it should end an argument before it starts. Abrasive blasting is not to be used on properties and structures built or painted before 1970, because of the lead content of the paint and the large amounts of uncontrolled dust it generates. Wet sanding is named as the preferred option to reduce dust. A blow torch produces lead fumes. Belt sanders with extraction bags are only partially effective.

The guidelines add the site controls that separate a managed job from a contaminated section:

A ground sheet large enough to contain all the debris, tied underneath if the crew is on scaffold, and disposable polythene rather than a reused dust sheet.
Wet sanding by hand, or a tungsten-bladed scraper, which lifts paint off in large particles that are easier to collect than dust.
A vacuum with a HEPA filter for the daily clean-down. HEPA filters take out 99.97 per cent of particles 0.3 microns and larger; a standard domestic vacuum does not.
Damp-wiping with detergent after vacuuming, then bagging the cloths with the debris. Never burn or bury it, and never use painted offcuts as firewood.
Interiors sealed at windows, doors and vents, soft furnishings out or sheeted; exteriors run with your windows and the neighbours' closed, and wet or chemical methods when wind would carry dust off the site.

"Ask for the method in writing before the scaffold goes up. Wet sanding, a tungsten scraper, polythene down, HEPA vac at the end of every day. It reads like fussy detail on a quote and it is the difference between a repaint and a clean-up. A crew that has done pre-1980 houses will hand you that list unasked." — Alison Yu, Designer, Superior Renovations

If the job is a straight exterior repaint rather than a renovation, that conversation belongs with your painter. Superior Painters on repainting an Auckland villa covers what a proper preparation run on a character home involves.

What the Method Does to Your Soil

This is the part that lands hardest with families and almost never appears in a quote. Paint dust and chips from an exterior job fall straight into the soil below the wall, which on an Auckland villa is often a garden bed, a lawn where children play, or a vegetable patch.

There are numbers for this. The guidelines carry investigation and action levels for lead in soil, drawn from the Ministry of Health's environmental case management guidelines.

Background for bare soil is under 200 mg/kg. The investigation level, at which a risk assessment and source investigation should start, is 300 mg/kg. The action level for bare soil, where remedial action becomes necessary, is 1,000 mg/kg. For a children's play area it drops to 300 mg/kg.

Children between one and five sit at the top of that risk group, and on a conservative estimate they take in up to 100 mg of soil a day. Once paint dust or fragments reach the soil or the plants, the guidelines say you may have to strip out and dispose of the affected layer. Water blasting carries its own rule. Run the waste water through a filter or an earth dam before it reaches a stormwater drain or ground soakage, so the fragments end up in contaminated waste rather than the harbour. On the vegetable garden, Health New Zealand is more reassuring than people expect: wash the produce carefully to get the dust and soil off it and it is safe to eat.

A ground sheet under the work area costs almost nothing. Digging out and replacing the top layer of a garden bed does not.

What the Health Numbers Actually Say

Lead absorption is notifiable to the medical officer of health in New Zealand. On 9 April 2021 the notification level was reduced to 0.24 micromoles per litre of blood or greater, down from 0.48, because more evidence had been found of irreversible health effects below the old threshold. Where a result meets or exceeds the level, the practitioner or laboratory must report it so the source can be identified and managed.

Two numbers from Environmental Health Intelligence New Zealand at Massey University put a renovation frame around that. Lead-based paint has been the most common source of non-occupational exposure, accounting for 27 per cent of notifications since 2014. And in 2023–24, painters and smelting or metal refinery workers were the most notified occupational groups for lead absorption. The people doing the work carry the highest measured burden. That tells you what the dust does when nobody controls it.

Children absorb roughly 50 per cent of ingested lead against 10 to 15 per cent in adults, and their developing nervous systems are more sensitive to it. Which is the whole argument for keeping children and pets away from the work area and off the debris.

Straight up: Superior Renovations is a renovation company, not a lead assessor or an occupational health service. We plan around this material and specify how it is handled. A blood lead test is a conversation with your GP, and for a paint flake tested or advice on a specific exposure, contact the health protection officer at your local public health service.

What It Costs, and What Belongs in Your Contract

There is no honest single figure for dealing with lead paint across a whole renovation. The variables are the surfaces involved, the removal method, and how much containment and clean-down the site needs. What we do publish, in our breakdown of what it costs to paint a house in New Zealand, is the premium on a repaint: lead-safe removal adds $1,000 to $2,000, and testing is worth doing on anything pre-dating 1980. Everything beyond that is priced against a specification, which is part of how we scope a renovation on an older Auckland home before a price is signed off.

The paperwork is where we would push harder, because paperwork is where a lead problem turns into a dispute. Four things worth settling before the contract is signed:

Who tests, and when. Specification stage, not the week the scaffold arrives.
The removal method, named. And what is expressly excluded on a pre-1970 house.
Containment and clean-down, itemised. Sheeting, HEPA vacuuming, damp-wiping, debris disposal, protection of soil and garden beds.
What happens if a test comes back positive. Whether that is a variation, and who wears the change to price and programme.

That last one is the difference between a managed cost and an argument on site. Our guide to what to get in writing before you sign covers how hidden conditions should be treated in a renovation contract, and lead paint is a textbook hidden condition on any pre-1980 house. On the character bungalows we work on in Epsom and Mt Eden, the painted timber that stays is as much a part of the planning as the joinery that comes out.

If the House Is a Rental

The position shifts when the property is tenanted or turning over between tenancies. The guidelines set out what a landlord must do: inform paint removal contractors of the presence of lead-based paint where it is known or suspected, and make sure those contractors are competent to recognise and manage the hazards. Where a landlord engages the tenant to do the removal, they must be satisfied the tenant is competent too, and a property manager carries the same responsibilities as the owner.

The default that same document gives landlords, managers and owners is the line to write into a maintenance policy: assume paintwork on pre-1980 buildings is lead-based unless records or testing prove otherwise. None of this sits inside the Healthy Homes standards, which deal with heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and draught-stopping. Lead paint is a separate regime again, and that is part of why it slips past a turnover inspection. Flaking exterior paint on an older rental is a maintenance decision with a hazard attached, not a tidiness issue. Superior Property Services on what maintaining a rental actually costs is a useful frame for budgeting that work across a portfolio.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my house has lead paint in New Zealand?

You cannot tell by looking. WorkSafe advises presuming a building built in the 1980s or earlier has been painted with lead-based paint. To confirm it, use the sodium sulphide test on a notch cut through to bare timber so every layer is exposed. Public health units test paint flakes free of charge.

Does an asbestos survey test for lead paint?

No. A refurbishment or demolition survey identifies asbestos-containing materials in the work area. Lead in paint is a separate material with its own test and its own guidance, and it sits outside an asbestos surveyor's scope. A clear asbestos result says nothing about lead.

Is it legal to sand or water-blast lead paint off my own house?

There is no licensing regime for lead paint removal as there is for asbestos, so it is not prohibited work for a homeowner. Health New Zealand does rule out abrasive blasting on anything built or painted before 1970, and names wet sanding as the preferred low-dust method. Check current WorkSafe guidance first.

How much does lead-safe paint removal add to a repaint?

On our published painting figures, lead-safe removal adds $1,000 to $2,000 to a repaint, and we recommend testing on any house pre-dating 1980. The total depends on surface area, method and containment, so it is priced against a specification, not a photo.

An older Auckland house is worth renovating precisely because of what it is made of. Wide boards, real timber joinery, ceilings you could not buy today. The paint is part of the same inheritance, and the only expensive version of this is the one where nobody asked until the sanding started. Test early, name the method, sheet the ground, and it stays a footnote rather than a chapter.

If you are weighing up work on a pre-1980 home, come and see us at the showroom at 16B Link Drive, Wairau Valley, or read more about how we work at superiorrenovations.co.nz. Either way, book a free in-home consultation and bring the paint question with you. It is a far better conversation at concept stage than on scaffold.

Lead Paint in Older Auckland Homes: What Surveys Miss