Harvard Medical School was established in 1782. The beautiful historic building includes several steel balconies and two fire escapes with intricate stairways containing hazardous lead paint. EnviroVantage (EV) was called to the rescue to take on the meticulous job of removing all the lead paint and restoring the effected areas while leaving the rest of the 3 ½ story building unharmed.
The EV team consisted of 5 licensed lead experts. They began tackling the project by first setting up the proper staging and containments all around the sites where they would be doing lead work. The crew did this while ensuring that all surrounding windows and exterior building surfaces were appropriately covered as well to protect the structure's soft, delicate sandstone.
After containments were built, the EV crew's next step was to add 6 negative air machines and seal everything off to make sure no lead dust could contaminate anything outside the active work areas. Once everything was set up and ready to go, they could start the sandblasting process.
All exterior fire escapes, complicated grates and detailed angle iron were carefully sandblasted with black beauty. This was not an easy task to do as the team was removing the lead paint and sandblasting only 3 inches away from the historical exterior that was not to be disturbed. The tiniest fleck of a paint chip hitting the surface of the building could cause destructive damage.
On top of that, EnviroVantage did all the blasting at night so as not to bother the normal daily activities of the School. The lack of daylight made it even more difficult to get through the tricky requirements of this project. Another challenge was not having any space around the building to put a dumpster for all the debris, so they had to come up with an innovative technique to make it work. The team decided to back one of our big box trucks right up to the building through the containment, and were able to properly package and load all hazardous materials and debris without any issues.
The project ran smooth, and Harvard Medical School now has a safe, lead-free, greener building to occupy. Another EnviroVantage success story has emerged!