The checklist's core areas
History and testing come first: the home's construction year, any prior testing reports, records from past renovations, and the specific materials the project will disturb. Testing, by qualified professionals, on the actual materials in question, converts era-based possibility into fact, and it is inexpensive against every alternative, including the cost of stopping a project mid-swing when suspicion arrives late.
Practices and containment follow where regulated materials are present or assumed: certified work practices for lead-safe renovation, containment that keeps dust inside the work zone, cleaning verification appropriate to the rules, and for asbestos, the bright line that assessment and abatement belong to licensed specialists, not to the general crew's optimism. Occupant planning rides along, who is in the home during the work, and which vulnerable residents, children, pregnant household members, deserve extra distance.
Paper closes the loop: testing reports, the credentials of whoever performs regulated work, waste-handling and disposal records where applicable, and clearance or cleaning verification at the end. The file protects the household's health decisions, the project's legality, and the home's future transactions, and assembling it is mostly a matter of asking for documents that proper operators generate anyway.
