5 dangerous things found in Maine’s old homes

Maine is full of older homes that were built by its prominent residents and are full of charm and character. 

But some older homes can also be riddled with outdated building materials and need expensive maintenance to ensure they remain safe. They were often built before the existence of local building codes, meaning they don’t meet modern construction standards. 

The Bangor Daily News spoke with three local home inspectors about materials or features they commonly see in the state’s older homes that could pose a risk to the homeowner or need to be remedied, sometimes for a high cost. 

The inspectors generally considered an “older home” to be anything built more than 100 years ago, of which Maine — and Bangor — has many. The Bangor Housing Study, completed in February, found that nearly 4,000 of the more than 15,000 homes in Bangor were built before 1940. 

Outdated electrical systems

Many older homes were built before electricity, so wiring was added later, said David Roberts, owner of Bangor-based Pine Tree Home Inspectors, who has 15 years of home inspection experience. 

The outdated wiring is also usually insufficient for the capacity of the home, which could lead to overloaded circuit breakers, said Troy Francis, owner of Alliance Home Inspections in Bangor, who has been inspecting homes for 14 years. 

Some homes still use the first iteration of electrical equipment that was installed in homes, called “knob and tube wiring,” which is ungrounded, exposed or covered with fabric, and handmade by twisting two wires together, said Michael Lacombe, of Pillar to Post Home Inspections. 

Aside from posing safety and practicality risks, Roberts said the equipment can be very difficult to remove because it snakes behind walls. 

The connections in knob and tube wiring are all handmade. Those connections break down over time and the quality is entirely dependent on who installed it, said Lacombe, who has eight years of home inspection experience from Bar Harbor to Kittery. 

Lacombe sometimes finds older homes using a mix of three different types of electrical wiring. 

Home insurance companies usually don’t like outdated electrical equipment and will either require the owner to replace it, or jack up the rates for coverage, Lacombe said.  

Lacombe said he’ll also find outlets in older homes that are ungrounded, which could start a fire if the outlet overheats and damages whatever device is plugged into it.  

Aging plumbing equipment 

Older homes often have water and sewer pipes made of galvanized steel and cast iron, which corrode from the inside out. 

Older iron pipes can also have more joints than their modern counterparts and that are prone to leaks over time, Roberts said. 

Lacombe sometimes sees owners removing rotting pipes in sections as they fail and replacing them with modern plastic or copper pipes. While this is cheaper than replacing every pipe in the home at once, it’s an arduous process. 

“It’s not a matter of if it’ll fail, but when,” Lacombe said. “They’re chasing the problem as things fail rather than proactively fixing the issue.” 

Francis sometimes sees lead water pipes in older homes, especially those with a drilled well. In those cases, he recommends a homeowner conduct water quality tests to ensure the water isn’t contaminated with lead. 

Some copper water supply pipes are also sealed together with high-lead solder, which can introduce lead into the drinking water, Roberts said. While this sounds scary, it usually can be remedied with a water purification system.

Sagging floors and shifting foundations 

Instead of today’s standard poured concrete, most older homes sit on fieldstone or rubble foundations, which were built by stacking large rocks and securing them with a mortar, Francis said. That mortar, and the stones themselves, can come loose over time.

“Those settle and shift over time and eventually, it will fail,” Lacombe said. 

These types of foundations can also let in moisture, especially when a home has a dirt floor basement. That can cause dry rot in the home’s structural supports, Francis said. 

Fixing a faulty foundation can be very expensive because the home needs to be supported while the old material is excavated and replaced, Roberts said.  

A house settling over decades or centuries can create uneven floors, which may prevent doors from lining up in their frames. While slanted floors can be inconvenient, they don’t necessarily hint at a structural problem within the house, Francis said. 

Sometimes, the floor in a home begins sagging because the wooden support posts below it are  rotting and getting shorter, Roberts said. 

“That’s very difficult to remedy,” Roberts said. “The reality is unless you completely gut the house, it’s almost impossible to jack it up to have perfectly level floors again.”

Hazardous materials 

Homes built before 1950 often contain paint, flooring or insulation that contain lead and asbestos, which can cause health problems if ingested, Francis said. 

In most cases, Lacombe finds lead paint or asbestos tiles that have been covered up with new layers of paint and flooring. 

Lead paint on windows can be particularly hazardous because the paint can chip off or grind into dust each time the window is opened and closed. 

“Paint chips and dust is what children get into and lead poisoning can impact their health,” Roberts said. 

Inefficient insulation, windows and heating systems 

Old homes were typically built using inefficient insulation materials such as newspapers, or without insulation altogether, Francis said. 

An older home may also have outdated windows in original wood frames that can be drafty. 

The combination of lackluster insulation and old windows means homeowners will need to spend more on heating and cooling costs, Roberts said. 

Older homes might still have aging heating systems that don’t function well or may be unreliable, especially if they’re nearing the end of their useful life, Roberts said. Those heating systems are expensive to replace. 

In some exceptionally older homes, Francis said he has found coal heating systems in the basement that aren’t used anymore, but can’t be removed. This is because the heating system was placed there and the home was built around it. 

“There’s no way of getting them out of the basement once they’re in there,” Francis said. “We’re constantly learning and finding new things after all these years.”