Residential Electrical in Sebago, Maine

Sebago's housing spans a wide range of ages. Roughly one Sebago home in six predates 1940. Many are farmhouses and village homes in Sebago Center, East Sebago and North Sebago, and behind their plaster there may still be knob-and-tube runs, cloth-covered cable and circuits with no ground. Houses put up between the 1940s and the 1970s, about a third more, tend toward two-prong receptacles, scarce GFCI protection and wiring stretched as rooms were added. Even the newer houses, built since 1980, mostly predate modern arc-fault protection in bedrooms and living spaces. Anyone buying an older house or camp here should ask an electrician to look at the panel and test some receptacles before the sale closes, because the wiring inside the walls is often the least visible and most expensive surprise in an older house.

Replacing knob-and-tube and aluminum runs, adding grounded receptacles, fitting GFCI and AFCI protection, chasing down dead or tripping circuits and wiring remodels and additions all fall within Goodnow Electric's work in Sebago. Camp conversions are their own category. With about 39 percent of Sebago's housing units held for the season, the comprehensive plan wants conversions tightly controlled through the plumbing and shoreland rules; when one is approved, the wiring usually needs as much attention as the septic system. The 2006 plan also recommended allowing apartments of up to 600 square feet and conversions of larger houses to multiple units in growth areas, and every one of those units requires separate circuits and frequently more service capacity.

Sebago is one of the towns that issues its own electrical permits. Under the town's form, walls and ceilings stay open until the inspector has looked at the wiring, and each visit is requested two days ahead, so a remodel schedule has to leave room for that wait. A free written estimate comes before anyone cuts into plaster, and Goodnow Electric files the permit and books each inspection with the Code Enforcement Officer in Sebago Center. On shorefront lots, check shoreland rules with the town before planning an addition, since the building permit comes before the wiring.