Window and siding replacement in South Berwick

South Berwick at a glance

People

7,670

Homes

3,172

Size

32.1 square miles

From downtown

About 39 miles southwest

ZIP codes

03908

Founded or incorporated

1814

South Berwick, set off from Berwick in 1814, has some of the oldest houses in the area, including the Sarah Orne Jewett House of 1774 on Central Square and the Federal-style Hamilton House of about 1785. Its village center was listed on the National Register in 2010, and the town lies along the Salmon Falls River on the New Hampshire line.

The houses in South Berwick

44% of the homes in South Berwick are older than 1980 and 22% older than 1940; the median one dates from 1982; 77% are detached houses and 78% 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.

Owners here put the median home's value at about $428,300, and 66% of homes have three bedrooms or more — each bedroom needs an emergency escape opening under the egress rule.

Half the homes in South Berwick were built before 1982, which makes its housing about the same age as across York County as a whole (median 1980). Set against York County as a whole, owners live in 78% of occupied homes here against 77% county-wide, the median owner-estimated value is $428,300 here and $395,700 across the county and detached houses are 77% of the homes, above the county's 70%.

Rooms in the median home

6.0

Heated with gas / electricity

7% / 4%

Townhouses and other attached homes

3%

Homes in buildings of 2 to 4 units

10%

Homes in buildings of 5 or more units

9%

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 South Berwick, 38% 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 South Berwick Village, Central Square, Great Works, Agamenticus Station, Emerys Bridge, Oldfields, Jewett and Boyd Corner.

Historic districts

South Berwick has 1 listed: South Berwick Village Historic District. 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

South Berwick shares a boundary with Berwick, North Berwick, Wells, York, Eliot, Rollinsford, New Hampshire, Dover, New Hampshire and Salmon Falls River.

The rules in South Berwick

Local quirks

The same page warns that if a home is in the Historic District, or within 1,500 feet of a historic property, special circumstances apply; in the Village Center and Liberty Street historic districts any change in a building's exterior appearance needs a Certificate of Appropriateness, with samples of any siding proposed.

Who to call

Building dept

207-384-3301

Official

Alan Plummer, Code Enforcement Officer, Licensed Plumbing Inspector and Health Officer

Permits

Department page

How South Berwick compares with its neighbors

All 29 York County places side by side →

Work we have done in South Berwick

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

Common questions about South Berwick

Where these facts came from

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