EnviroVantage remediates lead at Harvard Medical School building

Harvard Medical School was established in 1782. The building includes several steel balconies and two fire escapes with intricate stairways containing hazardous lead paint. EnviroVantage was hired to take on the job of removing all the lead paint and restoring the effected areas while leaving the rest of the 3 ½ story building unharmed. The EnviroVantage team consisted of 5 licensed lead experts. They first set up the proper staging and containments all around the site. 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 EnviroVantage 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 sandblasted with black beauty. 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 its big box trucks right up to the building through the containment, and they were able to properly package and load all hazardous materials and debris without any issues.