The peninsula's second village, 1911.
Wikipedia says Great Neck Estates incorporated in 1911, the second village on the Great Neck Peninsula to do so, so residents could keep home rule and get services the Town of North Hempstead didn't provide. Village Hall is the former John Jacob Atwater residence. In 1982 it became the first village on Long Island to call for a U.S.–Soviet nuclear freeze. The village covers 0.8 square miles, about 5% of it water.
The Census Bureau's latest five-year survey counts about 1,000 homes, with a median year built of 1944. 13% went up in the 1950s, 45% before 1940, and 21% after 1980. 87% are single-family detached houses, 11% are in buildings of five or more units, and 95% are owner-occupied.
So a typical house here has drain and water lines around 82 years old unless they've been replaced. Slow drains in several fixtures, a gurgling floor drain or rusty water from one tap are signs to have the main line and supply piping checked. With so many pre-1940 homes, some still have galvanized or older supply piping in the walls; we plan repairs around what's actually there.
Oil to gas means new gas piping.
The ACS shows 75% of homes heat with utility gas and 13% with fuel oil. Switching means properly sized gas piping to the new equipment, and often to the water heater, range and dryer. We do the gas line work. We don't sell or deliver oil.
Water heaters in Great Neck Estates.
The Census Bureau's survey puts the average owner household at 3.20 people, with a median of 8.1 rooms; 90% of homes have three or more bedrooms and 72% have four or more. A tank sized for a smaller household, or one full of sediment, is what runs out first when several people shower back to back. When a heater fails, we size the replacement to the household and the number of bathrooms, not just to the label on the old tank. Most houses here heat with gas, so the water heater is usually gas too, and it needs a sound flue, a working shutoff and a relief valve that discharges where it should; we check all three when we replace one.
Cesspools and septic, mostly.
Nassau County's health department list of sewer collection districts shows Great Neck Estates as not publicly sewered. A 2021 Great Neck Water Pollution Control District announcement (reported by Patch) said the village has no sewers except about 50 properties served by that district under outside contracts and about 16 served by the Belgrave district, and the district won a $150,000 county grant to study connecting about 1,000 homes in Great Neck Estates and Harbor Hills. So most houses here still drain to a cesspool or septic system. We clear the line from the house, but a full or failing cesspool is a job for a cesspool or septic contractor; we don't do cesspool work, and we don't install septic systems.
Flood risk.
Laying FEMA's current flood map over the Census boundary, about 17% of Great Neck Estates is in the high-risk (1% annual chance) flood zone (8.8% in zone VE, 7.9% in zone AE; shares of the Census area, water included). If your water heater or gas appliances ever sat in flood water, have them checked before relighting.
Water: Water Authority of Great Neck North.
EPA's service-area map puts essentially all residents on the Water Authority of Great Neck North; your bill is the final word. The main supplier's most recent 90th-percentile lead result was 3 ppb, under the 15 ppb action level; lead usually comes from a home's own pipes and fixtures, so results vary house to house. In EPA's UCMR 5 testing, the main supplier reported no PFOA or PFOS. For a leak at the curb or in the street, call your water supplier. For anything on your side of the meter, call us.
Permits.
Great Neck Estates is an incorporated village, so plumbing permits go through the Village of Great Neck Estates' building department, not the town.
