Window and siding replacement in Cape Elizabeth

Cape Elizabeth at a glance

People

9,606

Homes

3,981

Size

14.9 square miles

From downtown

About 7 miles southeast

ZIP codes

04107

Founded or incorporated

1765

An oceanfront town south of Portland Harbor, home to Portland Head Light, the oldest lighthouse in Maine, and three coastal parks: Fort Williams, Two Lights and Crescent Beach. South Portland split off in 1895 as the commercial and industrial north and the rural south grew apart, leaving Cape Elizabeth with the rural southern part.

The houses in Cape Elizabeth

Of the homes in Cape Elizabeth, 66% predate 1980 and 19% predate 1940; the median one dates from 1967. Detached single-family houses make up 90%; owners live in 88% of the occupied ones. 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.

Owners here put the median home's value at about $731,600, and 80% of homes have three bedrooms or more — each bedroom needs an emergency escape opening under the egress rule.

Half the homes in Cape Elizabeth were built before 1967, which makes its housing about 9 years older than across Cumberland County as a whole (median 1976). Set against Cumberland County as a whole, owners live in 88% of occupied homes here against 70% county-wide, the median owner-estimated value is $731,600 here and $451,200 across the county and detached houses are 90% of the homes, above the county's 63%.

Rooms in the median home

7.3

Heated with gas / electricity

11% / 12%

Townhouses and other attached homes

6%

Homes in buildings of 2 to 4 units

3%

Homes in buildings of 5 or more units

0%

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 Cape Elizabeth, 27% of them, was built in the 1960s and 1970s, so that is the house described here.

Aluminum sliders and single-hungs, single-glazed or with an early sealed unit, alongside the first vinyl-clad wood windows. An aluminum frame is a cold bridge: in January it collects frost and runs condensation onto the sill and the drywall return. Few of these windows are worth repairing, and on this vintage a full replacement is usually money well spent.

Raised ranches and split-levels in the new subdivisions, and lake cottages turned into year-round houses, clad in plywood panel siding, aluminum lap or the first vinyl. Plywood panels drink water at the bottom edge and at every butt joint; aluminum dents and chalks but rarely leaks. A converted camp may have siding nailed straight to the studs, with no sheathing and little or no insulation behind it.

Neighborhoods

We work across Cape Cottage, Two Lights, Kettle Cove, Pond Cove, Shore Acres, Bowery Beach, Spurwink Shores, Oakhurst, Delano Park, Elizabeth Park, Broad Cove and Great Pond.

Next door

Cape Elizabeth shares a boundary with South Portland, Scarborough, Portland, Atlantic Ocean and Casco Bay.

The rules in Cape Elizabeth

Local quirks

Building permits are applied for in the town's GovWell online system, in use since May 8, 2025, and a Flood Hazard Permit is needed to replace or modify any structure in a special flood hazard area.

Who to call

Building dept

207-799-1619

Official

Benjamin McDougal, Code Enforcement Officer

Permits

Department page

How Cape Elizabeth compares with its neighbors

All 25 Cumberland County places side by side →

Work we have done in Cape Elizabeth

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

Common questions about Cape Elizabeth

Where these facts came from

Sources: capeelizabeth.gov · capeelizabeth.gov · capeelizabeth.gov · capeelizabeth.gov · maine.gov · legislature.maine.gov