Middlesex County's housing, one town at a time

Pre-war multi-family houses close to Boston

The cities nearest Boston hold the oldest stock in the county. Census figures put Somerville's median year built at 1938, with about 61 percent of its homes predating 1940 and only about 11 percent single-family detached. Cambridge, with about 118,000 people, has a median of 1946 and under 10 percent detached houses. Everett, Malden and Medford look much the same, each with roughly half its housing built before 1940.

That mix means two- and three-family houses. In Somerville and Cambridge only about a third of homes are owner-occupied, so many calls come from landlords and from owners who live in one unit and rent the others. The work is unit kitchens and baths, stairs, porches and turnovers between tenants, often with people living upstairs. We plan dust control, water shutoffs and working hours around them before the job starts.

Houses this age carry plaster on wood lath, balloon framing that lets air and fire travel between floors, and sometimes knob-and-tube wiring found during demo. Anything built before 1978 gets lead-safe work practices. If we open a wall and find something that changes the scope, you hear about it the same day, in writing, with your options.

A ring of towns just outside the cities has housing nearly as old, but far more of it single-family.

Older single-family streets with plaster and old wiring

A ring of towns just outside the cities has housing nearly as old, but far more of it single-family. Belmont's median year built is 1938, with about 59 percent before 1940. Newton, the largest of these at about 88,000 people, sits at a median of 1941, with about half its homes pre-1940, 56 percent detached and about 70 percent owner-occupied. Melrose shares Belmont's 1938 median with a 56 percent single-family share, and Winchester, at 1953, is about 70 percent detached houses.

Here the requests are kitchens, primary baths, attic conversions and rear additions on houses that have been renovated two or three times already. The earlier work is often the problem: a joist notched for an old drain, a bath floor built up over older tile, an addition framed to a different standard. We look for those on the walkthrough and write them into the scope instead of discovering them halfway through.

Arlington sits between the two groups. Its median is 1946 and about 46 percent of its homes predate 1940, yet only 39 percent are detached houses, so a good share of its owners live in a two-family, and that shapes how a renovation gets staged.

Postwar and newer houses toward the outer towns

Farther north and west the medians move later. Lexington's is 1963 and Chelmsford's 1967. Burlington's is 1972, with only about 5 percent of its homes built before 1940. Hopkinton, at 1990, has about 32 percent of its housing built since 2000, and Tyngsborough, at 1989, about 29 percent. These are colonials, ranches and split-levels, and owners live in nearly all of them: about 92 percent in Sudbury and Wayland, 94 percent in Carlisle, and 96 percent in Dunstable, where 97 percent of homes are single-family detached.

The work changes with the house. Sixties and seventies homes get closed-in kitchens opened to the family room, which usually means a beam and a structural review. Basements get finished properly, with moisture handled first. Additions need footings below frost, about four feet down, and a bedroom added on a septic system brings a Title 5 design-flow review. Where a town has adopted the stretch energy code, insulation and air-sealing follow it once the walls are open.

Framingham, Waltham and Marlborough mix all of this, with medians in the sixties and seventies and owner-occupancy between about 48 and 57 percent. The distances are real too: Sherborn is about 27 miles from Raynham, Townsend about 61. For the farther towns we set the schedule and deliveries before work starts, so no one loses a day on the road.