And double check yourself if you're concerned about take-home contamination.
Code enforcement work runs into lead in four shapes. FluoroSpec reads all four.
Window casings, jambs, baseboards, porch railings, peeling exterior trim on pre-1978 housing. Spray the reagent on the paint, shine the UV light, the lead pigment lights up green.
Chips on the porch floor, chips inside a tot lot, sanding debris around a renovation. Drop the chip into a puddle of reagent and read it in seconds.
Windowsills, window troughs, floors, and yes, carpet. You can even find lead based paint dust particles inside a carpet pile. The reagent finds the lead pigment in the dust itself, not just the surface it sits on.
Vintage dishes, painted toys, antique jewelry, leaded crystal, fishing weights, old solder, bullet residue. Anything you suspect carries lead can be sprayed and read.
The hardest dust to read with anything else is the dust inside a carpet pile. FluoroSpec sprays a carpet sample and the lead pigment particles light up. The pile traps them and a vacuum will not fully pull them out. That is exactly the hazard kids crawl through.
The reagent is methylammonium bromide in isopropanol. When it touches lead in paint, dust, or pigment, it forms a perovskite quantum dot on contact.
Shine a 365 nm UV flashlight at the spot and the new crystal fluoresces green. The green only appears while the UV light is on it. The dot does not store light, it converts the invisible UV into visible green light for as long as you keep the lamp pointed at it. Pull the flashlight away and the green is gone. Point it back, the green is back.
It is a chemistry test, not a light trick. Nothing else in a typical built environment makes that color in that pattern at that intensity.
Code enforcement does not need lab-grade ppm numbers. You need a yes-or-no answer on whether a hazard exists, fast enough that you can act during the same visit.
FluoroSpec is built for that. A kit goes on the truck. When a tenant complaint points at peeling paint or dust on a sill, you confirm or rule out the hazard before you write up the report. If it is a yes, you have a photograph of the glow to attach. If it is a no, you stop chasing it.
It is a screening tool, the same way a tape measure is not a survey but you still want one on the belt. Confirmed hazards still get escalated to a certified inspector and HUD-protocol clearance work.
If you came to this page through Larry Brooks, he already has a stack of kits we sent him for his code enforcement trainings. Ask him for one in person. If you run a training program of your own and want stock plus a walk-through, use the agency button below.
Code CODEENFORCE20 applies automatically when you click the button below. Bring the kit back from empty in one order.
Send a quick note. Goes straight to Eric at eric@detectlead.com. He answers within a day.
