Wield These Chemical Weapons Carefully

Before tackling weekend projects, take our quick course in DIY danger

This brutal winter probably played havoc with your house. Paint is chipping, your deck is rotting, and your yard looks like a wasteland. Most likely, the next few weekends are going to be spent fixing up the damage. Before you crack out all those sealants, strippers, stains, and thinners, make sure you know the risks. Check out our guide below, and treat your home improvement projects like the science experiments that they truly are.

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Waterproofing agents and sealants
These spray-on coatings prevent water from absorbing into materials. Be wary, though, as they'll mess up your insides pronto: The sprays contain a sealant, composed of tiny Teflon-like particles, that can cause serious damage to your airways, says Henry Spiller, MS, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center. They also have no warning properties, such as a bad smell, that would indicate danger, and their unique chemical properties make them especially dicey. “The particles are so small that they get into the airspace and into the lungs,” says Spiller. Inhaling these can cause anything from difficulty breathing to severe pulmonary injury and chest pain that can last for weeks.

Solution: When using sealants and waterproofing agents, make sure you are outdoors or in a well-ventilated area so the particles can escape. Bystander inhalation is also a huge potential risk, so warn people, especially children, of the toxicity and keep them at a distance while using the spray. You can skip the paper mask: “Those keep out large particles, but won’t keep out the small ones in these,” says Spiller.

Paint strippers
These solvents dissolve paint or finish from various surfaces. When the stripper evaporates, the fumes build up. If you breathe them in, you could experience light-headedness, dizziness, and chest pain. “If your paint thinner contains methylene chloride, be extremely vigilant. The body metabolizes this to carbon monoxide,” Spiller says.

Solution: Again, it’s all about good ventilation. Spiller suggests doing your work outdoors. If you must do it inside, open windows and use fans, says Spiller. If in the garage, put the door up. The key is to have moving air.

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If you’re staining your deck to enhance its color or keep the wood from rotting, be vigilant about spills. “These can cause injury to you skin,” Spiller says. The damage done is a process called “defatting”—when the skin’s cell wall and lipoproteins are dissolved by alkalis in the stain. It’s not a true chemical burn, but it's very similar. 

Solution: If you spill any on yourself, wipe it off immediately. While it’s not going to hurt or start burning right away, if left on for a couple hours, the damage will begin. It can cause blistering, which is essentially a second-degree burn.

Paint thinner
Nicknamed “white spirits,” paint thinners have often been abused for their high-inducing effects. The chemicals in thinners volatilize, meaning the molecules concentrate quickly in the air and become highly flammable. Another risk when using paint thinners: splash-back in your eyes. Most likely, this will happen when you're pouring the thinner directly into paint.

Solution: Never use paint thinner in a closed space. Use in a well-ventilated room, or outdoors, where the chemical can freely escape. Avoid eye injury by wearing protective goggles. If you happen to get some in your eye, immediately hop in the shower, says Spiller. Stay in there for 10-15 minutes at a comfortable temperature, and blink into large amounts of water. Seek medical advice immediately to determine if further treatment is necessary.

Drain cleaners
These are called caustics, and are either acid- or alkali-based, says Spiller. They unclog your drain by eating away at the blockage. Both have the potential to seriously burn you, including thermal third-degree burns through your skin.

Solution: Wear protective gloves when using these, says Spiller, and never mix different drain cleaners. You could be combining bad chemicals, creating a toxic combination you might inhale. Bleach is a particularly nasty additive: “When bleach is mixed with these, it forms a small chlorine cloud, that can cause anything from coughing and wheezing to internal burning of your airways,” says Spiller. In fact, always try to dislodge your blockage mechanically—via a plunger or snake—before dumping chemicals down there.

Pesticides and herbicides
Just because you’re working in the outdoors doesn’t mean you’re safe from potential burns. Pesticides, when exposed and left on skin for extended periods of time, can cause serious damage. Herbicides also have been found to kill human cells. Most likely, you will be spraying each of these, which increases the risk for potential poisoning through inhalation or the eyes.

Solution: Always wear pants and long sleeves when spraying pesticides and herbicides, says Spiller. The more protective clothing, the better. If you spill on your clothes, remove those immediately and wash your skin. Ingesting or inhaling pesticides can lead to nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and headache, among other things. Another reminder: cross contaminating with herbicides and pesticides can be extremely dangerous. Triple rinse containers before re-using them.

If you have questions about a chemical accident, call the Poison Control Center hotline (1-800-222-1222). It's staffed by nurses, pharmacists, and physicians and will connect you immediately with the Poison Control headquarters closest to you.

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