Home Remodeling in Kent County, DE

Kent County is the middle of Delaware, and its housing follows the roads. The railroad left a string of 1850s towns on the line, Clayton, Wyoming and the older blocks of Smyrna among them, with frame houses still sitting a few blocks from the rails. Dover kept its 18th-century Green and a Victorian district around it. Route 13 brought the ranchers and Cape Cods that ring Dover, Camden and Smyrna from the 1940s through the 1970s, and since 2000 the growth has been at the north end of the county and around the Caesar Rodney schools south of Dover.

For a remodeler that means three kinds of house: railroad-era frame houses with plaster and balloon framing, postwar one-story houses with small kitchens and one bath, and 2000s two-story houses that are just now old enough for their first real update. The county has a lot of flat, high-water-table ground, so basements are less common than up north, and most remodels here are kitchens, bathrooms, additions and exterior work.

Permits in Kent County split between the towns and the county. Dover, Smyrna, Camden and Clayton issue their own building permits. Wyoming issues permits and contracts its inspections to a private agency. Outside town limits, Kent County handles the permit through its online portal. For towns without their own inspectors, the county does the plan review and inspections on the town's behalf once the town signs off on zoning. Dawson's serves the county from Middletown, twenty minutes up Route 1 from Smyrna and about half an hour from Dover.