Middleborough homes, from prewar to brand new

Prewar houses and new subdivisions in one town

By census figures Middleborough has about 24,000 people in roughly 10,100 homes, spread across 69 square miles of land. The median house dates from 1978, but that middle number hides the real picture. Around 20 percent of homes were built before 1940, and almost 26 percent went up after 2000. That much land leaves room for nearly every kind of house, and Middleborough has most of them.

Those two groups need very different remodels. In the older houses we plan for plaster walls, balloon framing that lets fire and air travel between floors, fieldstone or brick foundations, and wiring nobody would install today. Lead-safe practices apply to anything built before 1978, which covers about half the town's houses. Old foundations also tend to let water in at the corners, so we look at the basement before planning anything that sits above it.

In the post-2000 houses the bones are usually sound and the codes were close to current. The work there is about the layout: a kitchen that was built to sell rather than to cook in, a basement left unfinished, a bath with builder-grade tile that has started to fail at the tub. Work from that period often looks fine for fifteen years and then gives out all at once.

If your home is on a private septic system, adding a bedroom brings a Title 5 design-flow review in Massachusetts.

Close to Raynham, and that matters on a long job

Middleborough is one of the closer Plymouth County towns to our base. On a kitchen rebuild or an addition, that distance means Steve can be on site at the start and end of a day, not only at scheduled visits. Questions get answered in person, and decisions about tile layout or cabinet placement get made standing in the room. It also keeps small problems small, since a question about an outlet location gets settled before the drywall goes up rather than after.

A town with 69 square miles of land has plenty of houses set back on bigger lots. If your home is on a private septic system, adding a bedroom brings a Title 5 design-flow review in Massachusetts. We raise that before drawings, because it can decide whether an addition is a bedroom or a family room.

Permits go through the town building department under 780 CMR. We schedule the rough framing, insulation and final inspections, and the licensed electrician and plumber handle their own.

Two-families, rentals and investment property

About 71 percent of Middleborough homes are single-family detached, which leaves a real share in two-families, condos and small multi-unit buildings. Owner occupancy is around 78 percent, so some of the calls we get are from landlords and investors rather than the people living there.

Rental work has its own priorities. Durable finishes, units that turn over without a full gut, and a schedule that keeps the other tenant living normally. We write the scope per unit, say what has to be done for code and what is a choice, and keep the owner updated even when they live elsewhere. Turnover work is planned so a unit is down for as short a time as the scope honestly allows, and we tell the owner which items can wait for the next vacancy.

For an older two-family, we look at the shared systems first. Common walls, the stair, and the separation between units can carry requirements a single-family kitchen never does, and we would rather tell you up front than mid-demo. Older two-families also tend to have mixed electrical and plumbing from decades of separate repairs, and the licensed trades need to see that before anyone commits to a number.