General Contractor in Bath, ME
Kenneth Cox Construction has worked as a general contractor in Bath, ME on the tall old houses the shipyards built, and we have been at this since 1988.
- 38 years in business, since 1988
- Over 250 projects completed
- Affordable work, two-year written warranty
Bath's downtown houses went up tall and fast for shipyard workers, and most of them sit on dry-laid stone or rubble that nobody engineered. When water finds that stone, a corner drops and every door on three floors starts sticking at once.
The frame above is usually oak and usually still sound, so the fix is almost always at the bottom of the house instead of all through it. Kenneth Cox Construction quotes what can be seen and tells you plainly when something has to be opened up first.
Downtown lots here are narrow, access is tight, and historic district review adds real weeks to exterior work near the Kennebec. Every job we build carries a written 2-year workmanship warranty, backed by 38 years under the same name.
Why Bath Residents Hire Us for a Project
Thirty-eight years working Maine's older housing stock is the only real qualification for a house like yours, and Ken has been doing it under the same name that whole time.
We are BBB accredited, we carry a 2-year workmanship warranty on everything we build, and if something moves that should not have, we come back.
Get a free estimate for your Bath project
Ken has been building and remodeling around Bath since 1988. Tell us what you have in mind.
What other contractor services do we offer in Bath?
What other towns do we cover near Bath?
Where is our shop?
Directions from Bath, ME to our shop in Searsmont
128 New England RoadSearsmont, ME 04973
What General Contracting Services Do We Offer in Bath?
Our Bath general contracting work covers the coordination and construction that keep a multi-trade project under one accountable lead. The scope can include:
- Project management and subcontractor coordination
- Permitting and code compliance
- Scheduling across trades
- Additions and structural remodels
- New construction oversight
- Multi-trade renovation execution
What is our Bath general contracting process?
Get your free quote
Ken gets under the house and behind the trim before he prices anything, because on a Bath property that is where the answer lives.
We bring your project to life
Review, permits, trades and inspections are ours to manage, including the staging problem on a narrow street.
Enjoy your new space
Delivered to the agreed schedule, backed by two years of warranty.
Why are we the best general contractor in Bath, ME?
We are the best general contractor in Bath, ME for an old house that has started to move. Downtown Bath is full of three-story houses standing on foundations that were never engineered, just stacked.
Dry-laid stone and rubble hold up remarkably well until water gets into them, and then a corner settles and every door on all three floors starts telling you about it at once.
The good news is that the frame above is usually oak and usually excellent, so the repair is almost always at the bottom rather than throughout.
Bath was built fast, upward, and for workers. That produced a housing stock unlike anywhere else on this stretch of the Kennebec, and it fails in ways that surprise contractors who mostly work newer stock.
Ken quotes what he can see and says so plainly when something needs opening first, and every job carries a 2-year workmanship warranty from a BBB accredited company.
Our Bath clients tend to own something historic and want it to last another century rather than look new.
They are usually less interested in a fashionable finish than in knowing the structure underneath it is sound, which suits how we prefer to work anyway.
A general contractor handles the whole project in Bath, including the permit and any review through Bath Codes Enforcement, the trade scheduling, the inspections and the closeout.
In the historic district that also means the exterior conversation, because what a facade is permitted to become is settled before the first order goes in, not after.
We work the dense streets of the historic core, the neighborhoods climbing away from the river, and the postwar houses on the outskirts toward Woolwich and West Bath.
Downtown lots are tight enough that staging, deliveries and where the dumpster physically sits are part of the plan rather than details.
You should start a Bath project on the exterior a season before you want the work, because historic-district review needs its time built into the front of the schedule. A spring exterior job is really a winter phone call.
Interior work carries no such constraint and runs straight through the cold months, which is why we often do the inside first and the outside the following season.
Building in Bath is different because of geometry first. A tall, narrow house puts a lot of load on a small footprint, so a foundation problem here shows up as movement through all three floors rather than a crack in one wall.
The second is what that foundation is made of. Rubble and dry-laid stone respond to water and frost differently than poured concrete, and they want drainage and repointing rather than the modern instinct to underpin everything.
The third is the river. Tidal Kennebec exposure means a high water table on the lower streets and wind-driven rain on the upper ones, so flashing and drainage details we would consider generous inland are simply correct here.
Those three interact, which is exactly why a Bath estimate should come from someone who has already lived through the combination.
Ask what they would do about a settling rubble foundation, and be wary of anyone who reaches for the most expensive answer first.
Then ask how they handle historic review, and get the warranty in writing before anyone starts.
A Bath project costs whatever the foundation and sills turn out to be doing, which is why we will not publish a number for a two-hundred-year-old house. The honest range comes after somebody has looked underneath.
We look first and quote second, which is slower at the start and the reason the figure survives contact with the work.
What questions come up most in Bath?
Is a rubble foundation something to worry about?
A rubble foundation is not something to worry about on its own. Most of them have another century in them once the water is redirected and the worst sections are repointed.
Does historic review slow everything down?
Historic review does not slow everything down, only the exterior work, where it adds calendar time. We plan around it rather than fight it.
Why do all my doors stick at once?
All your doors stick at once because of one settling corner rather than four separate problems. In a tall house a small movement at the bottom travels a long way up.
Do you work on the newer houses too?
We work on the newer houses too, and plenty of our Bath work is on the postwar stock outside the district, where the constraints are entirely different.
Additions and Whole-House Remodels in Bath
An addition in Bath should respect the proportions of the existing house instead of reading like a box attached later. We settle the structure, exterior tie-in, and any local review before demolition, because matching the building is easier on paper than after framing starts.
What happens when you call us about Bath?
What happens when you call us about a Bath house is that Ken sorts your list. Tell him what is bothering you, from a sticking door to a wet cellar to a kitchen you have hated for a decade, and he will put it in order of what actually matters.
Nothing is charged for the visit and nobody pesters you afterward. Reach Ken directly on 207-386-9235, or check us first at the Better Business Bureau.