Are Home Lead Test Kits Reliable?

The simple answer is NO, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, who did a recent staff test study on 4 lead paint test kits on the market. They found that the tested home lead test kits didn't necessarily give the correct results in commonly encountered situations. You can find the details of the lead paint kit study at the CPSC website.

To cut a long story short, here's what happened. The CPSC found that more than half of the tested results were a false negative. This means that toys with lead paint in them were showing up as safe. They also found that 2 of the test results using a were a false positive, probably because of the red paint ingredient that caused the particular test to malfunction. An alarming finding was that the top coat of paint, if non-leaded, could probably be responsible for the tests not detecting lead, even though lead based paint may lie beneath the layer.

On the positive side, the CPSC findings did report that a technology called XRF, or X-Ray fluorescence was pretty accurate in detecting lead. However, once again, surface coatings which are non-lead containing, could distract from the actual lead content in the product.