Tank Water Heaters in Cumberland, Maine

Cumberland Homes and What They Need

Cumberland's housing splits between an old village core and decades of newer subdivisions. Census estimates put the median home at 1984, with about 15 percent built before 1940, in Cumberland Center, on the Foreside and on the older farms of West Cumberland, and another 15 percent built since 2010. Roughly 40 percent went up between 1980 and 2009, the era of the town's many subdivision neighborhoods. About 82 percent of homes are single-family detached. The older farmhouses often have fieldstone foundations, damp basements, knob-and-tube or cloth-sheathed wiring and heating added in stages, while 1990s and 2000s houses are reaching the age when original boilers, furnaces and water heaters come due. Where a house has radiant floor heating, its boiler and mixing controls need periodic attention.

Water Supply and Drains in Cumberland

The Portland Water District supplies both water and wastewater service in Cumberland, and the town's sewage is treated across the line at Falmouth's plant on Clearwater Drive before discharge to the Presumpscot estuary. Public mains follow the more settled parts of town, and homes on rural roads beyond them, including much of West Cumberland, depend on private wells and septic systems. Those wells draw from bedrock, and across Cumberland County more than 17 percent of tested private wells have exceeded Maine's arsenic guideline; Maine CDC recommends testing for arsenic, uranium and radon every three to five years and treating where results call for it. Treatment equipment, well tanks and water heaters all share basement space, so plan them together. On septic, keep grease and wipes out of the lines, and call for drain cleaning at the first slow drain rather than after a backup.

Getting to Know Cumberland