York County, Maine
Licensed, insured electrical work for Cornish homes and businesses, with the owner on every job.
Cornish sits where the Ossipee River meets the Saco, a village of Victorian and Colonial houses on Main and Maple streets with farms and wooded hills around it and about 1,800 residents. Goodnow Electric, a licensed Maine master electrician (MS60021971), works here on service upgrades, rewiring, EV chargers, standby generators, lighting and 24/7 emergency calls. The owner is on site for every job, estimates are free and in writing, and permits, inspections and the CMP disconnect are handled for you.
Cornish has older housing than neighboring Limington, Limerick, Parsonsfield or Baldwin. Census estimates put about 18 percent of its roughly 860 homes before 1940 and about 36 percent before 1960, and the median year built is 1976. About 81 percent are single-family detached houses, close to 10 percent are mobile homes, and nearly 7 percent sit in buildings with two to four units, a noticeably higher share than in the surrounding rural towns and likely a reflection of older village houses divided into apartments. Those numbers can mean fuse boxes and 60-amp services that were never replaced, knob-and-tube and cloth-covered wiring in plaster walls, shared meter banks on converted houses, and newer homes on the hills from the 1980s onward.
Heating oil warms about 72 percent of occupied Cornish homes, according to Census estimates, a higher share than in Limington, Limerick, Parsonsfield or Baldwin. Wood covers about 14 percent, propane about 9 percent and electricity only about 4 percent, and no homes report piped gas. That leaves Cornish with a long road to electrification and a lot of old services in the way. Heat pumps and EV chargers both work well in houses of this age once the service can carry them, and in a village home that often starts with retiring a fuse panel or a 60-amp service.
Central Maine Power delivers electricity to Cornish, and state utility maps place the town in CMP’s Alfred service district; the town’s own website points residents to CMP’s outage page. Statewide storms reach the valley: the October 2017 windstorm caused more than 400,000 Maine outages, and the 1998 ice storm left roughly 700,000 Maine residents without power. The Saco River is gauged at Cornish, and the town adopted a revised floodplain ordinance in 2024 with new FEMA map panels. The Cornish Water District runs a metered town supply, while homes on private wells lose water whenever the power fails.
Francis Small opened a trading post near the Ossipee and Saco confluence around 1665, where three Abenaki paths met, now Routes 5, 25 and 113. The town, first called Francisborough, was incorporated as Cornish in 1794. Between 1850 and 1860, teams of oxen hauled houses down from the High Road to today’s village. The LeRoy F. Pike Memorial Building, the 1925–26 town hall on Maple Street by John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens, and the 1902 Odd Fellows-Rebekah Hall on High Street are both on the National Register. Clark Mountain is York County’s highest point.
Cornish’s code enforcement officer handles building and land use under the town’s Land Use and Development Ordinance, including a Historic District Overlay where material changes to a building’s exterior, light fixtures included, go to the code officer and Planning Board. The town lists no electrical permit of its own. Electrical permits and inspections come from the Maine Electricians’ Examining Board, whose inspectors cover York County under the 2026 National Electrical Code for work begun on or after July 1, 2026. Riverside lots may also need Saco River Corridor Commission review.
Commercial, solar, smart home and new construction work are covered on our full list of electrical services.
Close to Cornish, we also work in Limington, Limerick, Parsonsfield, Baldwin, Newfield, and Shapleigh. Every town we serve is listed on our service area page.
Before you call, it can help to read what smart home wiring is worth doing in Maine, why Southern Maine homes outgrow 100-amp panels, and a Maine homeowner's guide to EV charger installation.
More resources: answers to common electrical questions, our generator sizing guide, and electrical tips and guides for Maine homeowners.
“Absolutely a fantastic experience!!! Had a complicated request for them and they didn’t even flinch to do the project!! Employees were on time, polite and engaged. I’m retired but wish I had had employees like Brett’s when I was in business!!! Thanks to all!!”
Chris Cantara • November 2025 • Google Review
Tell us what you need done and where; a licensed electrician will reply with a written quote.
