Siding, Roofing, Windows & Decks in Brunswick, Maine

Census estimates put Brunswick at roughly 9,500 housing units with a median year built of about 1982, so the typical house here is younger than in Portland but the range is wide. Close to one in five units dates from before 1940 and about 31 percent from before 1960, including the houses of the downtown and the Bowdoin neighborhoods. Another 16 percent or so went up between 1960 and 1979, and roughly 27 percent is from 2000 or later. About 71 percent of occupied homes are owner-occupied, and only about half of all units are single-family detached houses, which reflects the apartments, student housing and multi-unit buildings near the college and Maine Street. Seasonal homes are a small share, about 165 units. Expect clapboard Federal, Greek Revival and Colonial Revival houses in the historic districts, and vinyl-clad capes, ranches and colonials farther out.

Brunswick is coastal on its south side and inland on its north. Mere Point, Maquoit Bay and Middle Bay put houses in the path of salt air and wind off Casco Bay, while neighborhoods near the Androscoggin and out toward Durham feel more like an inland town. The Portland Jetport, the nearest long-record National Weather Service station, averaged about 69 inches of snow a year over the 1991 to 2020 normals, and Brunswick's own climate table shows roughly 51 inches of total precipitation. Winters swing above and below freezing many times, which works water into clapboard joints, cracked caulk and shingle edges. Nor'easters drive rain sideways into the east and north walls, and the shore points take the hardest wind.

Brunswick grew on the river. The Androscoggin falls about 41 feet in three stages here, and the town once had as many as 25 sawmills and, in 1809, Maine's first cotton mill. Bowdoin College, chartered in 1794, anchors the Federal Street Historic District, listed in 1976, with Federal, Greek Revival and Colonial Revival houses, First Parish Church and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House. Pennellville, on Middle Bay Cove, preserves ship captains' houses built between 1794 and 1860. Other neighborhoods include Cooks Corner, Mere Point, Bunganuc Landing and Brunswick Landing, the former Naval Air Station that closed in 2011.

Building permits in Brunswick go through the Planning and Codes Office at Town Hall, 85 Union Street, on paper or through the online permit portal. Maine's building code moved to the 2021 International Residential Code on April 7, 2025. Much of the historic core lies in the Village Review Overlay District, where the Village Review Board issues a Certificate of Appropriateness for alterations; the town notes that replacing windows, facades and ornamentation with identical styles and materials is not subject to review, and staff can approve minor work not visible from a public way. Waterfront lots within 250 feet of tidal areas also fall under shoreland zoning.

Each page below covers one job in Brunswick: what the town's houses and weather mean for it, what the work involves, and what moves the price. For the full picture of a trade, see our siding, window replacement, roofing and deck building pages.