Siding, Roofing, Windows & Decks in Cape Elizabeth, Maine

The Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimates about 3,980 housing units in Cape Elizabeth, and roughly 90 percent of them are single-family detached houses. About 88 percent of occupied homes are owner-occupied. The estimated median year built is 1967. Close to 40 percent of the stock predates 1960, including about one in five homes built before 1940, and another quarter went up between 1960 and 1979. Only around 7 percent was built in 2000 or later, so most houses here are old enough to have outlived at least one roof and one round of siding. The older layer includes summer houses from the late nineteenth century, when Portland architect John Calvin Stevens designed Shingle Style cottages along the Casco Bay shore. The survey also counts roughly 210 seasonal units, homes that may sit closed through the winter.

Cape Elizabeth has almost no shelter from the sea. The land faces open ocean to the east and south, so wind off the Gulf of Maine arrives with salt spray and nothing to break it, and nor'easters push rain sideways into siding joints, window heads and roof edges. Portland, just to the north, averages about 69 inches of snow a year, with large swings between winters, and storms that bring a foot or more are a regular part of the season. The ocean moderates temperatures near the shore, which means more winter days that hover around freezing and more freeze-thaw cycles on shingles, flashing and deck footings. Fog and damp air keep north-facing walls and shaded roofs wet longer than inland houses see.

Cape Elizabeth is a collection of named neighborhoods rather than a single downtown: Cape Cottage and Delano Park near Fort Williams, Shore Acres, Pond Cove, Oakhurst, Two Lights and Kettle Cove, Spurwink Shores and Bowery Beach. Fort Williams Park surrounds Portland Head Light, the oldest lighthouse in Maine, and the Cape Elizabeth Lights stand in Two Lights State Park. National Register listings include the 1886-87 C.A. Brown Cottage in Delano Park, a John Calvin Stevens design in weathered wood shingles over a fieldstone base; Beckett's Castle, a stone summer house from the 1870s; the Spurwink Congregational Church; and Crescent Lodge, the 1855 Bowery Beach schoolhouse.

Permits run through the Cape Elizabeth Code Enforcement Office, 320 Ocean House Road, which has accepted building applications online since May 2025. Its FAQ states that a building permit is required to construct, structurally alter or enlarge a structure, and that no permit is required to replace siding or roofing. A new deck needs a building permit. The town's Shoreland Performance Overlay District covers land within 250 feet of tidal waters, Great Pond and the Spurwink River, with a 75-foot setback for new structures from most water bodies. Resource protection permits go through the Planning Office, and work in a mapped flood zone needs a Flood Hazard Permit.

Each page below covers one job in Cape Elizabeth: 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.