The Older Home Intake Question Set SOP

Purpose

When the office books work in a house built before 1980, five extra minutes on the phone decide whether the right tech arrives with the right kit and enough time, or whether a single tech discovers a painted 1950s wall, a fuse panel and a suspect ceiling at 8 am with a two-hour slot and no plastic sheeting. This procedure is the question set the office asks and the routing rules that turn the answers into a tech assignment, a kit, a time allowance and a confirmation the customer can read. A step fails when an answer cannot be pinned down, and the stop rule for every such failure is the same: book as though the less favorable answer is true, and tell the tech.

The year 1980 is the gate because the federal ban on lead paint for residential use took effect in 1978 and many asbestos-containing building products were still in residential use through the 1970s. It is a booking screen, not a safety line: a 1985 house can carry a 1965 panel from a remodel, and an addition can be a different decade from the house.

Scope

Covers: any booking for a single-family house or a duplex built before 1980, or of unknown age, where the work will open, cut, drill, sand or disturb a wall, ceiling, floor, attic, crawlspace, flue, panel or piping. A service call that only touches an appliance gets steps 1 and 9 only.

Does not cover: buildings of three or more units (The Multifamily Building Job Intake SOP), jobs booked by an agent for a sale (The Real Estate Job Intake SOP, which adds the disclosure questions), and new-customer setup itself (The New Customer Intake SOP, which runs first). This SOP sits on top of those, not in place of them.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Get the year built and say where it came from. Ask the customer, then check the county property record or assessor's page while still on the call or within the hour. Record both and their sources. Acceptance: a year on the ticket with a named source, and the pre-1980 flag set or cleared. What wrong looks like: "older home" with no year, or a customer year and a public-record year more than 5 years apart. Stop rule: when they disagree, book to the older year and write "year in dispute" on the ticket so the tech reads the house on arrival. Hazard: none at this step, it is a desk task; the hazard is the wrong tech, kit or time arriving because the year was a guess.

2. Ask what has been added or changed, and when. "Has the house had an addition, a finished basement, a kitchen or bath remodel, or new wiring or plumbing? Roughly what decade?" Then ask where in the house this job is. Acceptance: the job location tied to "original" or to a named addition with its decade. What wrong looks like: a job in a 1990s addition booked as a 1955 job, or the reverse. Stop rule: if the customer cannot say which part the work is in, book it as original. Hazard: none, a desk task; an addition wall often shares a cavity with an original one, so a wrong "addition" answer can send a tech into old paint unprepared.

3. Ask about known materials and known test results, open first, then by list. Open: "Has anyone told you about anything in the house we should know about before we work?" Then by list, each a yes, no or don't know: asbestos testing or removal, lead paint testing, aluminum wiring, a fuse panel, gray plastic water pipe, an oil tank, a well or septic system, vermiculite in the attic. Acceptance: every list item answered, and any "yes, tested" or "yes, removed" carries a document or "no document." What wrong looks like: "the asbestos was taken out" with no report. Stop rule: a removal or a negative test with no paper is recorded as "reported, not documented" and treated as unknown, not cleared; ask the customer to send it if they find it. Hazard: none, a desk task; a reported clearance accepted as fact is how a crew ends up sanding a floor the seller only partly abated.

4. Ask for any prior inspection report. Home inspection at purchase, an insurance inspection, an earlier contractor's write-up. If they have one, ask them to email it, and read the sections that cover the area of the job. Acceptance: report received and the relevant section noted on the ticket, or "no report" recorded. What wrong looks like: a report in hand that nobody read. Stop rule: if a report flags a suspect material in the job area, the tech assignment in step 6 assumes it is present. Hazard: none, a desk task.

5. Ask who will be home and whether anyone needs the work area kept clear. "Will anyone be home during the work, including young children or anyone who'd need us to keep dust out of a room?" Do not ask about medical conditions; ask only what changes the plan. Acceptance: occupancy during work recorded. What wrong looks like: a crew setting up plastic around a nap room nobody mentioned. Stop rule: if young children will be present and the job disturbs pre-1978 paint, scheduling sets the lead-safe flag in step 6 even if the paint is unconfirmed. Hazard: none, a desk task; the hazard this answer manages is the occupant's dust exposure, which is why it changes containment and time.

6. Route the tech by the flags. Rules, as a common starting point: pre-1978 housing and work disturbing more than the federal minor-repair threshold of painted surface (6 sq ft per room inside, 20 sq ft outside, or any window replacement) goes to a certified renovator working for a certified firm under the EPA RRP rule (40 CFR 745 Subpart E) or your state's authorized program, which can be stricter. Electrical work with reported aluminum wiring or a fuse panel goes to a licensed electrician, not a generalist. Attic or crawlspace work with reported or unknown vermiculite goes to a tech told in writing not to disturb it. Acceptance: tech named, and their credential matches every flag. What wrong looks like: the only certified renovator is booked solid, so the job goes to someone uncertified "for the non-paint part." Stop rule: if no qualified tech is free, move the date; do not split the job to dodge the rule. Hazard: the assignment is the hazard control for every later step; this is not legal advice, and a borderline RRP call goes to the rule's text or your state program, not a guess.

7. Set the kit on the ticket. Default additions for a flagged older house: a non-contact voltage tester and a CO meter for any trade, plastic sheeting, tape, a HEPA vacuum and warning signs for a lead-safe job, and a printed copy of the stop-work protocol. Respirators appear on the kit list only for techs enrolled in the shop's written respiratory program under 29 CFR 1910.134; anyone else does not do the work that calls for one. Acceptance: kit list printed on the ticket and checked at the truck. What wrong looks like: a lead-safe job loaded with a shop vac. Stop rule: missing containment items mean the job does not start disturbance until they arrive. Hazard: a respirator handed to an untrained, unfitted tech is a false control; the program gate is the control.

8. Set the time allowance. Defaults to tune with your own job history: add 20 minutes to the first visit for a legacy materials walk in any pre-1980 house, add 25 percent to the labor estimate when the work opens walls or ceilings in a pre-1960 house, and add the setup and cleaning time your lead-safe jobs actually take (many shops find 1 to 2 hours). Acceptance: the slot on the schedule reflects each added line. What wrong looks like: a two-hour slot for a job that needs containment. Stop rule: if the slot cannot be stretched, book two visits rather than compressing setup. Hazard: none, a desk task; the hazard it removes is a tech skipping containment because the day ran out.

9. Confirm in writing and deliver what the law requires before work starts. Send the customer the date, the tech's name, what will be set up, and the expected length. For an RRP-covered renovation, the federal rule requires the firm to give the owner (and occupants, if different) the EPA "Renovate Right" pamphlet no more than 60 days before work begins and to get a written acknowledgment (40 CFR 745.84). Acceptance: confirmation sent, and for covered jobs the pamphlet acknowledgment on file before the start date. What wrong looks like: the pamphlet handed over at the door on the morning of the job with no signature. Stop rule: no acknowledgment on file, no start; reschedule. Hazard: none, a desk task.

The record this produces

The intake card on the job ticket: year built with both sources, the job location as original or addition, each material question with its answer and document status, the inspection report note, occupancy during work, the flags, the assigned tech and credential, the kit list, the time added and why, and the pamphlet acknowledgment date. The tech reads it before arrival and amends it on site; dispatch reads it when the job runs long; the owner reviews monthly how often the tech's on-site year disagreed with the intake, which is the measure of whether step 1 is working. RRP records, including the acknowledgment, are kept three years after the job (40 CFR 745.86).

Worked pass

Booking a kitchen remodel. Step 3 failed and took its stop rule; step 6 then moved the date.

OLDER HOME INTAKE                      Ticket 4471
1 Year: customer 1964 / county record 1961
  -> 1961 booked, gap 3 yrs, no dispute flag
2 Changes: 1998 bath remodel. Job: kitchen, original.
3 Asbestos: "removed by seller" - NO DOCUMENT
    -> REPORTED, NOT DOCUMENTED, treat as unknown
  Lead test: don't know   Aluminum wire: no
  Fuse panel: no (breakers 1998)   Gray pipe: no
  Oil tank: don't know    Well/septic: no
  Vermiculite: don't know (no attic work)
4 Report: 2021 purchase inspection received.
  Kitchen: "9x9 floor tile, suspect" noted.
5 Home during work: yes, child age 2
6 Flags: RRP (pre-1978, ~40 sq ft wall),
  suspect tile in job area. Certified renovator
  booked; first free date 9 days out, date moved.
7 Kit: poly, tape, HEPA vac, signs, NCV, CO meter
8 Time: +20 min walk, +25% labor, +1.5 hr setup
9 Pamphlet acknowledged day 1 of 9, on file

Step 1 passed because 1964 and 1961 are 3 years apart, inside the 5-year gate, and the older year was booked. Step 3 failed on the asbestos line and its stop rule converted "removed" to unknown, which matters because the inspection report in step 4 named suspect tile in the very room; the tile goes to sampling before the floor is touched. Step 6 found the certified renovator unavailable for 9 days and moved the date rather than splitting the job. The pamphlet acknowledgment was on file 8 days before the start, inside the 60-day window.

References

• EPA, Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E (745.84 pre-renovation education, 745.86 records)
• OSHA, Respiratory Protection, 29 CFR 1910.134
• See related: Dating a House by What You Find in It
• See related: The House the Listing Dated Wrong
• See related: How to Do a Legacy Materials Walk Before Quoting an Older House