Why the Age of the House Matters
Saskatoon has a lot of old housing for a prairie city. Nutana dates to 1883, and most of its houses went up in the early 1900s. Varsity View has hundreds of pre-war homes. City Park and Caswell Hill are full of early-1900s character houses. Then came the big post-war build-out: Montgomery Place from 1946, and Holliston and Grosvenor Park through the 1950s and 60s. The north end followed in the 1960s to 80s.
The year a house was built is the best single clue to what's hidden in its walls, paint and attic, and Health Canada's guidance is organised around exactly that:
| Built | Lead paint (Health Canada) | Asbestos |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1960 | Probably, inside and outside | Possible in many materials |
| 1960 to 1990 | May be on the exterior | Possible: it was mainly used before 1990 |
| After 1990 | Should not contain lead paint | Unlikely |
Health Canada's renovation page goes further and suggests testing for lead in homes built before 1991. Either way, a test costs far less than cleaning lead dust out of a house.
Lead Paint: Leave It, Cover It, or Remove It Properly
Lead was used as a white pigment in paint until the mid-1950s. Health Canada is direct about the risk: there is no known safe level of lead exposure, and even small amounts of lead dust are dangerous to infants and children. Unborn children are at risk too.
- Never sand it, heat-gun it or torch it. Health Canada says sanders, heat guns and blowlamps create toxic lead dust and fumes.
- Sometimes the safest option is to leave it alone. Intact lead paint that isn't chipping or within children's reach can stay. Covering it with wallpaper, wallboard or paneling adds protection.
- If it must come off, seal doorways and vents with plastic sheeting and tape, remove or cover the furniture, and set a fan to blow air out of an open window.
- Clean up every day: put scrapings and chips in a sealed container marked "Hazardous Waste", wipe the area down with a damp cloth, then throw the cloth away.
- Keep children and pregnant people out of the work area entirely.
- To find out for sure, send paint chips to a lab, or hire a contractor with x-ray equipment.
In Saskatoon, household hazardous waste goes to the City's drop-off. Our junk disposal guide has the details.
Asbestos and Vermiculite: Test First, Never Disturb
Before 1990, asbestos was used mainly to insulate homes against cold and noise. Health Canada lists it in older house siding, cement and plaster, floor and ceiling tiles, and roofing products such as tar paper, shingles and felt. You can't tell by looking. Breathing the fibres can cause lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma.
- Don't disturb anything that might contain asbestos. That means no cutting, drilling, sanding or demolishing it.
- Hire a professional to test before you renovate, and a qualified asbestos removal specialist if it's found. Health Canada's advice is never to remove it yourself.
If your attic has vermiculite
Vermiculite is the loose, pebbly, grey-brown or gold insulation found in some older attics and walls. Some of it, from the Libby mine in Montana between the 1920s and 1990, contains asbestos. The federal advice is to assume any vermiculite produced before 1990 may contain it. Health Canada says don't use the attic for storage, keep children out of it, and don't disturb the insulation or try to remove it yourself. Sealed away and left alone, there's no evidence of a risk.
Ordinary Renovation Dust: Contain It, Then Clean It Properly
Even without lead or asbestos, a renovation fills a house with fine dust that keeps settling for days. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) lists plasterers and drywallers among the trades most exposed to crystalline silica dust, which can scar the lungs. Health Canada's renovation advice for homeowners:
- Seal off the work area so dust doesn't travel into the rest of the house.
- Ventilate during and after: open windows or run exhaust fans.
- Wear the protective equipment the job calls for: gloves, goggles, a mask and protective clothing.
- Keep children, pregnant people and vulnerable adults away from the work area.
- Clean with a wet cloth or mop and a HEPA-filtered vacuum, and clean brushes, work clothes and shoes right after working.
- Change the furnace filter if the work was particularly dusty.
The cleanup, in the right order
- Wait for the trades to finish, and for any lead or asbestos work to be completed and cleared by the professionals who did it. Ordinary cleaning comes after that, never instead of it.
- Work top to bottom: light fixtures, door and window frames, the tops of cabinets, then walls, sills and baseboards, and floors last.
- HEPA-vacuum first, then wet-wipe. Never dry-sweep or blow dust around. A broom just puts fine dust back in the air.
- Do inside the cabinets, drawers and closets. Renovation dust gets everywhere a door was left open.
- Replace the furnace filter and wipe the vent covers. The furnace will otherwise spread leftover dust through every room.
- Expect a second pass. Fine dust keeps settling for days after the work stops, which is why we clean in more than one pass.
What We Do, and What We Don't
Our post-construction cleaning handles ordinary renovation and construction dust: HEPA filtration, wet wiping and multiple passes, from light fixtures to baseboards. We don't test for, remove or clean up lead paint or asbestos. That is specialist abatement work, and it has to be done and cleared before we come in. If you're not sure whether your project touched either, test first. Once the trades and any specialists are finished, a deep clean or post-construction clean gets the house back to normal.