What the numbers mean for Northwest landlords
Germantown (19138 and 19144) has 50% of the area’s rentals: 4,075 licensed rentals, 3,998 of them built before 1978. Its big renewal year is 2029, when 1,770 lead-safe certificates expire.
Chestnut Hill (19118) is small but has the third highest share of lapsed certificates in the city: 46 of its 260 licensed rentals show an expired certificate in the City’s records.
Across Northwest Philly, 764 licensed rentals have a lapsed certificate. A new lease, a lease renewal or a rental license renewal needs a current one, so if yours has expired, test before the next of those comes up.
What a test involves here
The Northwest has many large older houses: stone twins, Victorians split into apartments, and hillside rowhouses in Manayunk and Roxborough. Size doesn’t change the test. For each unit we wipe one floor and one windowsill in every bedroom and in one common room, plus a blank control, so a 3-bedroom apartment is 9 samples.
Old wood windows and painted sills are the usual reasons a unit fails the 2026 limits (floors 5, sills 40, troughs 100 µg/ft²). The prep checklist covers what to clean and fix first.
After you pass
You get the certificate and lab report by email, with the exact steps for filing on the City’s lead certification portal. The certificate is good for four years.