Siding, Roofing, Windows & Decks in Scarborough, Maine

Census estimates for 2020 to 2024 put Scarborough at about 11,100 housing units with a median year built of 1988, a young housing stock for a town settled in 1635. About 30 percent of homes date from 2000 or later and roughly another 31 percent from the 1980s and 1990s, so a large share of houses are reaching the age when original roofs, builder-grade windows and first-generation siding come due together. About 24 percent went up between 1960 and 1979. The older layer is thinner but distinctive: about 16 percent of homes predate 1960 and about 8 percent predate 1940, including the summer cottages of Prouts Neck, many of which have changed little in more than a century. Roughly 69 percent of homes are single-family detached, about 77 percent of occupied homes are owner-occupied, and some 850 units are held for seasonal use.

Scarborough faces Saco Bay and the open Gulf of Maine, and much of the town sits close to sea level, with an average elevation of about 20 feet and a high point of roughly 215 feet on Beech Ridge. Houses at Prouts Neck, Pine Point and Higgins Beach take wind and salt spray straight off the water, and winter nor'easters bring high winds, driving rain and snowfalls that often top a foot. The Portland International Jetport, a few miles away, averages close to 69 inches of snow a year, though totals swing widely from one winter to the next. Homes along the marsh sit on low, open ground where wind crosses the flats. Everywhere, repeated freezing and thawing works water into joints, sills and shingle edges.

Scarborough was settled in 1635 and incorporated in 1658, and it grew as a string of separate places rather than around one downtown: Pine Point, Higgins Beach and Prouts Neck on the shore, and Dunstan, Oak Hill, Eight Corners, North Scarborough and West Scarborough inland. Prouts Neck, first called Black Point, became a summer colony of Shingle-style cottages, many designed by Maine architect John Calvin Stevens. In 1884 he reworked a carriage house there into Winslow Homer's studio, now a National Historic Landmark owned by the Portland Museum of Art. The 3,200-acre Scarborough Marsh is fed by the Nonesuch, Libby and Dunstan rivers. Other National Register listings include the Dunstan Methodist Episcopal Church and the Richard Hunniwell House.

Building permits in Scarborough go through the Code Enforcement division of the Planning and Codes Department, which applies the 2021 Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code and its residential code. The town's code FAQ says anyone who intends to construct, alter or repair a building must first obtain the required permit, so new decks and deck replacements are permitted before work starts; ask the office about roofing, siding and windows. Lots near the shore, marsh or rivers fall under Shoreland Zoning Ordinance 405C, and any development in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area needs a flood hazard permit, a condition of the town's membership in the National Flood Insurance Program.

Each page below covers one job in Scarborough: 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.