Heat Pump Installation in Westbrook, Maine

Westbrook Homes and What They Need

Westbrook's housing splits cleanly into two eras. Census estimates put the median home at 1975: about a quarter of units date from before 1940, the old mill-town core along the Presumpscot, while roughly a quarter were built since 2000 as the city grew faster than any other in Maine between 2010 and 2020. Fewer than half of homes are single detached houses, about a fifth of units are in buildings with five or more apartments, and about 6 percent are mobile homes, a higher share than most nearby towns. Neighborhoods such as Cumberland Mills, Frenchtown and Deer Hill carry older two- and multi-family houses, while newer apartments and subdivisions fill in toward Prides Corner and the edges of town. That older half often has aging drain stacks and supply piping, and clearing old drain lines is a routine part of keeping it working.

Heating and Cooling in Westbrook

Oil still heats about half of Westbrook: census estimates show roughly 49 percent of occupied homes on fuel oil or kerosene, about 19 percent on utility gas, about 17 percent on electricity and about 11 percent on bottled propane. Unitil's Northern Utilities serves the city, so gas is an option on many streets near downtown and the main roads. Westbrook sits a few miles inland of the harbor, so winter nights run a touch colder than on the Portland peninsula. Older homes here were built around oil-fired boilers or furnaces and many have no central cooling at all. A common upgrade is adding central air conditioning through a heat pump, which also takes a large share of the heating load off the oil burner.

Getting to Know Westbrook