Radiation shielding installation, East Valley
Lead lined drywall installation in Mesa and the Phoenix East Valley
Mesa Lead Lined Drywall is a radiation shielding installation contractor serving Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler and the rest of the Phoenix East Valley. We hang lead lined gypsum board, sheet lead, lead lined doors and lead glass for dental, veterinary, urgent care and imaging buildouts, and we publish our pricing.
Shielding a single x-ray room in the Mesa area typically costs $6,000 to $15,000 installed, using 5/8 inch gypsum board laminated with 1/32 to 1/16 inch sheet lead on the walls your physicist’s report calls out. Arizona requires every x-ray machine to be registered with the ADHS Bureau of Radiation Control, and the room around it has to match a shielding plan prepared under NCRP Report 147 (the national standard that sets how much lead each wall needs), so the thickness is set by that report, not by the installer. Board hangs vertically with screws at 8 inches on center, lead batten strips cover every joint, and every outlet or penetration gets backed with sheet lead so the barrier stays continuous. Most single rooms take two to four working days on site, and material arrives one to three weeks after order.
1/16″
most common lead thickness for dental and urgent care walls
8″ o.c.
screw spacing lead lined board requires, half of standard drywall
2 to 4 days
on-site time for a typical single x-ray room
9 cities
covered across the East Valley and Phoenix
What an x-ray room costs to shield here
Shielding quotes in this trade are usually a black box. Ours aren’t. These are the installed ranges we work from, and the full cost guide explains every line.
| Job type | Typical installed range | What moves the price |
|---|---|---|
| Dental operatory walls | $2,000 to $6,500 | Wall count, 1/32 vs 1/16 inch lead |
| Single x-ray room (urgent care, ortho, chiro) | $6,000 to $15,000 | Lead thickness, door and window count |
| Veterinary x-ray room | $4,500 to $12,000 | Room size, exposure workload |
| CT or high energy room | $15,000 to $30,000+ | Lead equivalence, ceiling and floor shielding |
| Lead lined door, installed | $2,500 to $6,000 | Lead core thickness, frame and hardware |
| Lead glass window, installed | $1,200 to $3,500 | Glass size and lead equivalence |
Shielding capabilities by room type
Each buildout type has its own shielding profile. Pick yours for specifics.
Dental offices
Operatory walls for intraoral, panoramic and CBCT units. The most common job in the East Valley, and usually the smallest.
Veterinary clinics
Radiology rooms for small animal and equine practices, where machine workload and room layout differ from human clinics.
Urgent care and imaging
Radiographic rooms, fluoro and CT suites for urgent care, orthopedic and imaging center buildouts, including ceiling and floor shielding.
How lead lined drywall goes in
The board itself is 5/8 inch gypsum with sheet lead laminated to the back. Getting a room to pass the physicist’s survey is about the details around it.
- Your radiation physicist issues a shielding report naming each barrier and its required lead thickness. We quote from that report, or from room drawings if the report isn’t done yet.
- We order lead lined gypsum, sheet lead, batten strips and any lead lined door or lead glass window, with material certs for the file.
- Board hangs vertically, never horizontally, with screws at 8 inches on center into studs.
- Every vertical joint gets a lead batten strip behind it so the seams overlap. Every outlet box, pass box and penetration gets backed with sheet lead.
- Door frames are wrapped, lead glass is set, and we photograph every assembly before tape and finish so there’s proof of what’s behind the paint.
- Your physicist runs the verification survey. We come back for any correction at our cost if an assembly we built doesn’t pass.
Things to consider before the board goes up
The expensive mistakes in shielding work happen before installation. A few that come up on almost every East Valley project:
- Get the shielding report first. Lead thickness is set by a qualified expert under NCRP Report 147. Guessing thick to be safe wastes thousands, guessing thin means tearing out finished walls.
- Count your penetrations. Outlets, switches, network drops and plumbing in a shielded wall each need lead backing. Moving a few boxes to an unshielded wall at the design stage is free. Shielding them later isn’t.
- Check adjacent occupancy. What’s on the other side of the wall (a hallway, an office, another tenant) changes the required protection. Corner suites in new East Valley medical buildings often need less lead than mid-building ones.
- Order doors early. Lead lined doors are the longest lead-time item, often three weeks or more. We order them the day a project is confirmed.
Why clinics call a shielding installer instead of a general drywaller
General drywall crews are good at drywall. Radiation shielding punishes exactly the habits that make regular drywall fast: horizontal hanging, wide screw spacing, cutting boxes in wherever the plan shows them. A shielded room that fails the verification survey has to be opened back up, and the failure points (a missing batten strip, an unbacked box) are invisible under paint. Our crews do this work to the NCRP details, document every assembly with photos and material certs, and coordinate directly with your physicist so the survey is a formality, not a gamble.
You also get real numbers before anyone visits your site. Start with the published ranges above, or the Arizona x-ray shielding requirements guide if you’re still at the planning stage.
Ballpark your shielding cost in 20 seconds
Same numbers as our published pricing, applied to your room. The figure most people miss: every penetration (outlets, film pass boxes, plumbing) has to be backed with sheet lead, so a wall full of cuts costs more than a clean one.
Pick all three and your typical installed range appears here, drawn from the same numbers on our pricing page.
Where we work
Based in Mesa, covering the medical corridors of the East Valley and metro Phoenix.
Common questions
Does my dental office in Arizona really need lead lined walls?
Usually yes for the walls the physicist flags. Every x-ray machine in Arizona has to be registered with the ADHS Bureau of Radiation Control, and the shielding around it has to match a qualified expert’s report based on NCRP 147. Many dental operatories only need 1/32 or 1/16 inch lead in specific walls, not the whole suite.
Can our regular drywall crew hang lead lined board?
They can hang it, but the shielding usually fails the physicist’s check afterward. Lead lined gypsum has rules regular crews don’t know: vertical installation only, screws at 8 inches on center, lead batten strips at every joint, and sheet lead backing behind every outlet, box and penetration. A missed batten strip is invisible once painted and shows up only in the survey.
How long does shielding a single x-ray room take?
Two to four working days for a typical single room once material is on site, including doors and lead glass. Lead lined drywall itself hangs about as fast as regular board. Material lead time is the real schedule driver, usually one to three weeks from the supplier.
What does lead lined drywall cost installed?
In the Phoenix East Valley, plan on $9.50 to $24 per square foot installed depending on lead thickness. A typical single x-ray room lands between $6,000 and $15,000 including a lead lined door. Our pricing page breaks down every job type.
Do you handle the paperwork for the state?
We install to the shielding report and hand you the documentation your physicist and the ADHS Bureau of Radiation Control expect: material certs showing lead equivalence and thickness, plus photos of the assemblies before close-up. Machine registration itself stays with your physicist and the practice.
Sources worth reading: the ADHS Bureau of Radiation Control on machine registration, and NCRP Report 147 on how shielding design values are set.