Tank Water Heaters in Falmouth, Maine

Falmouth Homes and What They Need

Falmouth's housing is younger than most of Greater Portland. Census estimates put the median home here at 1986, and roughly 14 percent of homes have been built since 2010, many of them in newer subdivisions. The older layer is still real: about 14 percent of homes predate 1940 and about four in ten predate 1980, from Falmouth Foreside along Route 88 to West Falmouth Corner and Highland Lake. Around 80 percent of homes are single-family detached houses, and most are owner-occupied. In practice that means two very different kinds of job in one town: a newer colonial with PEX, a mechanical room and room for ductwork, and a Foreside house with copper or galvanized supply lines, tired shutoff valves and pinhole leaks that need tracing behind finished walls.

Water Supply and Drains in Falmouth

The Portland Water District supplies drinking water in Falmouth, drawn from Sebago Lake, but sewer is the town's own. Falmouth's wastewater department runs about 58 miles of gravity sewer and force main, 33 pump stations and a 1.56 million gallon per day treatment plant on Clearwater Drive that discharges to the Presumpscot River estuary and Casco Bay; the plant also treats wastewater from Cumberland. The collection system follows Route 1 and Route 88 in the east and reaches Route 100, Winn Road and Falmouth on the Green in the west, so homes beyond it generally rely on septic systems and, where the water mains stop, private wells. Across Cumberland County more than 17 percent of tested private wells have exceeded Maine's arsenic guideline. For a busy household, an on-demand tankless water heater is one way to free up space in a finished basement.

Getting to Know Falmouth