Window and siding replacement in Kennebunk

Kennebunk at a glance

People

11,820

Homes

6,403

Size

35.1 square miles

From downtown

About 24 miles southwest

ZIP codes

04043, 04094

Founded or incorporated

1820

Kennebunk runs from the inland Kennebunk Plains and West Kennebunk to the ocean at Kennebunk Beach, Gooch's Beach and the Lower Village, and it was a shipbuilding center until 1918, leaving many historic shipbuilders' homes.

The houses in Kennebunk

44% of the homes in Kennebunk are older than 1980 and 19% older than 1940; the median one dates from 1983; 65% are detached houses and 81% of occupied homes are owner-occupied. A sizable share of homes here date from before 1980, the era the federal lead rule covers (homes built before 1978). What the lead rule requires of a contractor.

By the owners' own estimate, the median owned home in Kennebunk is worth about $487,700. 58% of homes have three or more bedrooms, and each bedroom needs an emergency escape opening under the egress rule.

Half the homes in Kennebunk were built before 1983, which makes its housing about 3 years newer than across York County as a whole (median 1980). Set against York County as a whole, owners live in 81% of occupied homes here against 77% county-wide, the median owner-estimated value is $487,700 here and $395,700 across the county and detached houses are 65% of the homes, below the county's 70%.

Rooms in the median home

6.1

Heated with gas / electricity

9% / 15%

Townhouses and other attached homes

14%

Homes in buildings of 2 to 4 units

12%

Homes in buildings of 5 or more units

6%

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 Kennebunk, 32% of them, was built in the 1980s and 1990s, so that is the house described here.

Double-glazed vinyl or clad wood windows with a nailing fin, many now thirty or forty years old. The common failure is the seal between the panes: once it lets go the glass fogs between the layers and the gas fill is gone. When the frames are still square and dry, new sealed glass in the old frame is the cheaper repair; when the frames are cracked or the sills are soft, it is time for the whole unit.

The capes, colonials and raised ranches of the subdivisions that spread across the commuter towns, sided in vinyl or cedar clapboard over plywood or particle-board sheathing, with felt paper or an early house wrap behind it. The siding itself usually holds up; what to look at is what water has done at the corners, around the windows and under any deck ledger fastened through the siding.

Neighborhoods

We work across Lower Village, Kennebunk Beach, West Kennebunk, Kennebunk Landing, Gooch's Beach, Mother's Beach, Parsons Beach, Lords Point, Bartlett Mills, Coopers Corner, Alewife and Four Corners.

Historic districts

Kennebunk has 3 listed: Kennebunk Historic District, Lower Alewive Historic District and Kennebunk Historic Preservation Overlay 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

Kennebunk shares a boundary with Kennebunkport, Arundel, Lyman, Alfred, Sanford, Wells, Kennebunk River and Atlantic Ocean.

The rules in Kennebunk

What the permit costs

Every permit has a $45 application processing fee, and building permits have a $40 minimum.

Local quirks

In Kennebunk's Historic Preservation Overlay District, created in 1963, no building permit for exterior work is issued until the Historic Preservation Commission grants a certificate of appropriateness.

Who to call

Building dept

207-604-1303

Official

Frank Kunkel, Code Enforcement Officer

Permits

Department page

How Kennebunk compares with its neighbors

All 29 York County places side by side →

Work we have done in Kennebunk

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

Common questions about Kennebunk

Where these facts came from

Sources: kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · kennebunkmaine.us · maine.gov · legislature.maine.gov