Aces Highlands heat pump installation in progress: vacuum pump and refrigerant gauges connected to an outdoor unit on a brick home

HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical in Portland, Maine

Portland, Cumberland County

Your Local Home Service Team in Portland

Aces Highlands is proud to call Portland home. As Maine's largest city and the heart of Cumberland County, Portland homeowners face unique heating and cooling challenges — from century-old Victorian homes in the West End to modern condos on the waterfront. We understand the local building stock and deliver heat pump installations, boiler repairs, and full electrical services tailored to Portland's diverse housing.

Our office at 508 Riverside Street means we're minutes away from any Portland neighborhood — Munjoy Hill, Deering Center, Back Cove, Bayside, and beyond. We provide same-week service for most plumbing and HVAC calls, and emergency availability when your heat goes out mid-winter.

Portland winters demand reliable heating. Whether you need a furnace tune-up before the cold hits or a complete water heater replacement, we deliver honest diagnostics and clean workmanship every time. Financing is available for all major installations.

Why Choose Us for Portland

Local team based at 508 Riverside St Unit 1 in Portland — minutes from Portland
Honest diagnostics and transparent pricing — no upselling
Same-week scheduling for most service calls
Licensed, insured, and reviewed by real customers on Google

Getting to Know Portland

Portland has burned to the ground four times — most famously in the Great Fire of July 4, 1866, which destroyed some 1,800 buildings and left around 10,000 people homeless, the largest urban fire in American history up to that point. The city's phoenix seal and motto "Resurgam" — "I shall rise again" — capture how Portland rebuilt itself, largely in brick, giving the Old Port the Victorian streetscape it is known for today.

That rebuilding history is exactly why so much of Portland's housing stock dates to the late 1800s — and why heating, plumbing, and electrical work here often means retrofitting modern equipment into brick and timber-frame buildings never designed for it. That is the kind of work our Portland-based team does every week.

Portland Homes and What They Need

Census estimates for 2020 to 2024 put the median Portland home at 1946, and about 46 percent of the city's housing units were built before 1940. Only about a third of homes are single detached houses; roughly a third of units sit in buildings with five or more apartments, and a little over half of households rent. That mix covers peninsula walk-ups on Munjoy Hill and in the West End, larger single-family streets off the peninsula, a thin layer of postwar ranches and capes, and newer condominium buildings. In buildings this old it is common to find cast-iron or galvanized piping, hot-water or steam radiators, and original circuits that were never sized for modern kitchens or heat pumps. Work on rewiring an older Portland building usually starts with finding out what is behind the plaster.

Heating and Cooling in Portland

Portland is the most gas-connected of the towns around it. Census estimates show roughly 39 percent of occupied homes heat mainly with utility gas from Unitil's Northern Utilities system, about 31 percent with fuel oil or kerosene, about 22 percent with electricity and around 6 percent with bottled propane; wood is under 1 percent. That electric share is high for Maine and likely reflects both apartments with baseboard heat and a steady move to heat pumps. Weather at the Portland International Jetport averages a January low in the mid-teens, with about ten nights a year at or below zero,, and the city's waterfront setting spares it some of the deepest cold felt farther inland. For older homes on gas or oil radiators, a common path is keeping the boiler and radiator system as backup while ductless heads carry most of the season.

Water Supply and Drains in Portland

Nearly every Portland address is on public water from the Portland Water District, which draws from Sebago Lake and treats it at its Standish plant with ozone and ultraviolet light; the lake's quality earned a federal filtration waiver held by only about 50 U.S. water systems. The district also treats Portland's wastewater, mostly at the East End plant. Parts of the older city still run on combined sewers, where storm runoff and sewage share one pipe, and the city has built large underground storage around Back Cove to cut overflows into Casco Bay. For a homeowner that history matters: the private lateral from the house to the street is often old clay or cast iron, prone to root intrusion and cracking, and heavy rain can expose a weak connection. A camera inspection before a sewer lateral repair shows what you are dealing with.

Power, Storms and Wiring in Portland

Central Maine Power delivers electricity in Portland, and the city was part of the hardest-hit county in the December 18, 2023 windstorm, when Cumberland County had more than 70,000 customers dark at one point in the afternoon. Older residential streets carry overhead lines under mature trees, which is where wind damage tends to start. Commuting looks different here than in the suburbs: census figures show only about 54 percent of workers drive alone, about a quarter work from home and a few percent take transit. With a majority of households renting and many relying on shared driveways or on-street parking, home EV charging is often a question for building owners, and it usually meets an electrical service that dates from before anyone planned for it. Adding a Level 2 charger at a Portland home often begins with a load calculation on the existing panel.

Local & Independent — Not a Franchise

Aces Highlands is a locally owned Portland, Maine company serving Portland — not a national franchise. Our technicians are not commissioned salespeople and nobody here is required to upsell you anything. We do the work you called us for, do it right, and earn the next call. That is the whole business model.

REQUEST SERVICE CALL (207) 670-8616