South Lowell Painters — South Lowell

The city's 2011 master plan report measured South Lowell at 6.1 people per acre in 2010, the lowest the report gave for any neighborhood and about half the citywide 12.1. The same report assigns a single census tract, 3123, to South Lowell, so that tract's Census figures are the best available picture of the neighborhood.

Recent estimates for that tract show housing weighted toward the postwar decades. Of 2,148 homes, 535 date from the 1960s and 390 from the 1970s, together 43.1% of the total, and the median home was built in 1968. Only 16.0% predate 1940, against 43.9% citywide.

The housing is a mix. Single-family detached homes make up 40.6% of units, two-family buildings 14.9%, and apartment buildings of 10 to 49 units another 29.3%. About six in ten occupied homes (60.9%) are owner-occupied.

There is an older layer too. A 1936 federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation survey of Lowell, as transcribed by local historian Richard Howe, describes a section, labeled South Lowell/Oaklands in the transcription, where single homes predominated and "a majority of the homes are 35 to 50 years old," meaning houses from roughly 1886 to 1901. Older houses still show up in the numbers: the tract counts 343 homes built before 1940.

1960s and 1970s exteriors

On a house from the 1960s or 1970s, the siding has to be identified before anything is quoted. Original wood clapboard, manufactured panel or hardboard siding, and aluminum added later each take paint differently: hardboard swells where water gets in at cut ends, and chalky aluminum has to be washed and given a bonding primer before topcoats will hold. Our exterior painting in Lowell page explains the prep.

Lead still applies to these decades

The federal ban on lead in residential paint took effect in 1978, so a 1960s or early-1970s house is still in the window. In Tract 3123, 72.0% of homes were built before 1980. Test before sanding, and follow Massachusetts lead-safe practice where lead is found.

Drywall or plaster: check first

Walls in a postwar house may be drywall rather than the plaster on lath common in 19th-century construction, and the difference changes the prep. Drywall calls for setting nail pops and refinishing loose tape seams; plaster calls for crack repair and re-securing loose areas. See interior painting in Lowell.

Apartment buildings and associations

Close to a third of the tract's homes are in buildings of 10 to 49 units. Where those units are condominiums, the master deed sets which parts, such as hallways, exterior trim or entry doors, are common areas under the association's control. Our condo painting in Lowell page covers approvals and insurance certificates.