Window and siding replacement in Biddeford

Biddeford at a glance

People

22,498

Homes

10,502

Size

30.1 square miles

From downtown

About 17 miles southwest

ZIP codes

04005, 04006, 04007

Founded or incorporated

1653

Biddeford, the principal commercial center of York County, grew as a mill city: large textile mills such as the Laconia and Pepperell companies rose at the Saco River falls in the 1840s and 1850s, drawing Irish, Albanian and French-Canadian workers. Its ocean shore holds the seaside neighborhoods of Hills Beach, Biddeford Pool, Fortunes Rocks and Granite Point. The city's historic preservation ordinance covers exterior alterations in its designated downtown and mill-area historic districts.

The houses in Biddeford

74% of the homes in Biddeford are older than 1980 and 41% older than 1940; the median one dates from 1952; 41% are detached houses and 48% of occupied homes are owner-occupied. With most of the housing older than 1980, the federal lead rule is likely on most window and siding jobs here. What the lead rule requires of a contractor.

47% of the homes in Biddeford have three or more bedrooms. The median owned home is worth about $396,600 by its owner's estimate, the figure to weigh any siding or window quote against.

Half the homes in Biddeford were built before 1952, which makes its housing about 28 years older than across York County as a whole (median 1980). Set against York County as a whole, owners live in 48% of occupied homes here against 77% county-wide, the median owner-estimated value is $396,600 here and $395,700 across the county and detached houses are 41% of the homes, below the county's 70%.

Rooms in the median home

5.0

Heated with gas / electricity

8% / 12%

Townhouses and other attached homes

2%

Homes in buildings of 2 to 4 units

34%

Homes in buildings of 5 or more units

22%

Mobile homes

1%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates (tables B25034, B25035, B25024, B25003, B25077, B25041, B25018 and B25040), read through Census Reporter. These are survey estimates, not a count of every house.

What that vintage turns up

The largest group of homes in Biddeford, 41% of them, was built before 1940, so that is the house described here.

The originals are wood double-hung sashes on cords and weights: small panes on the capes and farmhouses, two-over-two or one-over-one on the Victorian, Italianate and Greek Revival houses of the shipbuilding and mill towns. Many now sit behind an aluminum storm window added decades later. The sash wood is usually old-growth and sound; the putty, the sill paint and the cords are what give out. A tuned-up sash with a tight storm in front of it is a real alternative to replacement on these houses, and inside a local historic district it is often the one the review expects.

Painted wood clapboards on the street walls, and cedar shingles on the sides, the ells and every surface of the Shingle-style summer houses along the coast, all nailed straight to board sheathing. In the cities a good share of these are two- and three-family houses. Plenty were later wrapped in asbestos-cement shingles, aluminum or vinyl to stop the painting; underneath is either clapboard worth restoring or soft bottom courses where winter snow banked against the wall for decades.

Neighborhoods

We work across Biddeford Pool, Hills Beach, Fortunes Rocks, Granite Point, Five Points, Fort Hill, Guinea Corner, Oak Ridge, Newtown, Timber Point, Wood Island and Springs Island.

Historic districts

Biddeford has 4 listed: Biddeford Main Street Historic District, Biddeford-Saco Mills Historic District, Downtown Historic District (local) and Mill Area Historic District (local). A National Register listing on its own does not limit what you fit; a local district or landmark designation can, and in several towns here a change of siding material or window sash needs a certificate before the permit. Which towns' rules bind, and how.

Next door

Biddeford shares a boundary with Saco, Dayton, Arundel, Kennebunkport, Saco River and Atlantic Ocean.

The rules in Biddeford

What the permit costs

A $60 application fee plus $15 per $1,000 of project value; projects of $5,000 or less pay only the $60, and work started before the permit pays double.

Local quirks

In Biddeford's downtown and mill-area historic districts and on designated landmarks, any change other than minor repair in siding materials, or in door and window sash, needs a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission before Code Enforcement issues a permit.

Who to call

Building dept

207-284-9236

Official

Roby Fecteau, Director of Code Enforcement and Emergency Management

Permits

Department page

How Biddeford compares with its neighbors

All 29 York County places side by side →

Work we have done in Biddeford

Nothing completed in Biddeford so far. Rather than pad this out, we have left it blank until there is a real job to describe.

Common questions about Biddeford

Where these facts came from

Sources: ecode360.com · biddefordmaine.org · ecode360.com · biddefordmaine.org · biddefordmaine.org · biddefordmaine.org · biddefordmaine.org · ecode360.com · biddefordmaine.org · maine.gov · legislature.maine.gov