Why should you be required to be certified if you never work in places that require certification. This is not a requirement to be able to do electrical - it is a situation that you can run into if you do electrical.
In all fairness to my quote, I am talking specifically about New Jersey. I'm surprised that they don't require you to own a miniature elephant on top of whatever other qualifications are deemed necessary.
I do work in a food processing plant and they have some rules there I never run into anywhere else. Do I need to wear a hair net or use foot baths when I am working in somebodys house? Maybe they should require knowledge of food product safety requirements for electrical licensing too.
We were discussing cutting in recessed lighting in lathe and plaster ceilings, a good indicator that you might be working in a lead environment.
Do you need to be certified if you are disturbing less than 6 sq ft?
If you are working in the possible environment, it is strongly encouraged by the EPA. If it is a high possibility, and in consideration to this thread, it is a high possibility that you might exceed 6 sq ft based on how a lighting project is done by some, why would you not get lead certification? But to specifically address the question, no.
What if a general contractor guts a place then I come in to wire it? Am I a part of disturbing more than 6 square feet? I do run into that sometimes - and that could be a problem if I am to be certified. Whenever I am in that situation nobody else there is taking any extra precaution to keep lead dust down so any effort from me would be pointless.
If the general contractor guts everything in the place and it is tested negative for lead after the cleanup procedure, you are no longer in the lead environment and do not need to follow the guidelines. One of our contractors recently started doing this, as our (as well as HVAC) costs to them skyrocket do to time restraints while working in these areas.
If the general contractor is demoing while you are working there, you are certainly required to have a lead certification and individual employee certification (two different certs, a company cert, and once that is issued, an individual can train those in the company).
If a general contractor allows work on site, by a non-certified subcontractor, BOTH are held responsible for fines. All employees working in the lead environment have to be trained as well.
We don't have to like RRP, but just as we don't have to like every code in the NEC, it is our responsibility to follow.
It was a 100+ year old home and the plaster crumbled like a coffee cake and it was horse hair. I didn't have a dust mask with me and was too lazy to run out buy one thinking oh it's only 4 cans. The amount of dust that came out from just those 4 holes could fill up a nice size box.
