Your older house might have an undeniable amount of charm, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically the safest place in the world for your family. More often than not, older homes come with more than a few hidden safety hazards. If you’re not sure where to look or what to fix first, here are a few common safety hazards you need to attend to as soon as possible.
Lead Paint
Unfortunately, the probability of finding lead paint somewhere in your home increases with its age. For instance, if your home was built before 1940, there’s an almost 87% chance that there’s lead paint somewhere on the walls. Why is lead-based paint so dangerous in your home? This paint tends to chip and peel quite easily. If you have small children or pets, these paint chips can easily be ingested accidentally, which can lead to lead poisoning. While the thought of lead paint lurking in your home is definitely scary, it’s actually pretty easy to test for. If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional for testing, it’s possible to get a DIY test kit to check your paint for lead content. But if you do find lead content in the paint on your walls, it’s critical that you hire a professional to remove it and give your walls a fresh, safe coat of paint. It’s also a good idea to check every room in your home for lead-based paint, just in case it was used in more than one space.
Old or Faulty Electrical Work
When it comes to serious hazards in older homes, electrical fires take the cake. Old or faulty electrical work not only poses the risk of electrocution, but also electrical fires in your home. So if you’re dealing with old electrical work, especially if any of it is exposed in an unfinished part of the house, you will want to protect yourself from electrocution with insulating gloves. It is also essential to get an electrician to look at it as soon as possible. And since electricity plays such a large role in your energy use — water heating alone makes up almost 18% of typical home energy costs — getting electrical issues taken care of as soon as possible will be a huge help in reducing energy expenses, too.
Mold
Where there’s mold, there’s danger for your family. One of the most common places you can find mold in the bathroom, especially if there’s poor ventilation in there. While a little bit of mold is easy enough to clean away, bleach won’t solve the larger problem in your bathroom, which is a lack of ventilation and a lot of moisture damage. It’s tempting to preserve the original bathroom when you live in an older house, but remodeling might do you some much-needed good when it comes to better ventilation and moisture protection. And the good news doesn’t stop there — a remodeled bathroom can increase the resale value of your property by over 60%. There’s no rule saying you have to abandon the aesthetic of the original bathroom, either. But if you can recreate that look with safer, more modern construction techniques, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of trouble in the long run.
Fixing up an old house can feel like a daunting project when you consider how many hidden safety hazards might be lurking inside. Remember to use specialist companies or equipment and anything you need to keep yourself safe in the process of the work you need to carry out. Once you identify key areas that need attention and get those repairs started, you and your family can start breathing a little easier with the knowledge that you’re making your home safer to live in.
