Home Inspection in Nassau County, NY

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Of the 51,523 flood-insurance claims that FEMA’s file attaches to Nassau County since 1978, 62% come from six ZIP codes, while ZIP 11530 (Garden City) has 19. A home inspection in Nassau County has to start from that gap. The housing looks alike across the county, mostly detached houses from the 1940s to the 1960s, but the flood history, the sewers, the water supplier and the building department change from one part of the county to another, and each change alters what a buyer should ask.

Inspecwise works from South Ozone Park, Queens, as a New York State–licensed home inspector with InterNACHI certification, and Nassau is one of the counties we cover. For a home inspection in Nassau County, this page compares 22 ZIP codes on census and FEMA figures, sets out the South Shore flood record, lists the town, village and city documents we could verify (and the one question we could not answer), and reads the water, sewer and heating records for what they mean on inspection day. The Levitt houses, the oil tanks and the Hicksville water district have their own page, Levittown and Hicksville, and we do not repeat it here. For the Island as a whole, see home inspection on Long Island; for the next county, Suffolk. If you are selling, our Nassau pre-listing page is written for you.

A county built in one generation, and what that leaves in the houses

The Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 survey counts about 458,000 occupied homes in Nassau. Of the housing units, 47% were built in the 1940s and 1950s, 19% in 1939 or earlier and 34% in 1960 or later, and 79% date from before 1970. The median year built is 1955. About 76% of homes are detached one-family houses, 13% are in buildings of five or more units, and 82% are owner-occupied. These are survey estimates with margins of error, so we round them.

Three things follow from that age. Original systems have been replaced, patched or left alone, so the first question for any seller is which is which. Houses have grown, through dormers, rear extensions and finished attics and garages, so the second is what was added and whether the town has a record of it. And about 26% of Nassau homes, roughly 121,000, still burn fuel oil, so the third is the tank. The Levittown and Hicksville page works through all three for the Levitt-era houses.

Twenty-two Nassau ZIP codes side by side

ZIP codes follow mail routes. The Postal Service’s name for one is not a village, hamlet or school-district name, and the edges differ, so read each row as a picture of an area and not of an address. The first table covers age, building type and tenure; the second covers heating fuel and the flood-claims count.

The oldest stock in the table is in ZIP 11570 (Rockville Centre), where 42% of homes date from 1939 or earlier and the median year built is 1946, followed by 11530 (Garden City) at 35%, Baldwin (11510) at 33% and Freeport (11520) at 32%. At the other end, only 2% of the homes in ZIP 11756 (Levittown), 3% in Plainview (11803) and 3% in Massapequa Park (11762) predate 1940; these are tract-built areas, where 87%, 62% and 77% of homes were built from 1940 through 1959. Long Beach, Glen Cove and Port Washington have about half of their homes from 1960 or later.

Building type and tenure vary even more. In ZIP 11021 (Great Neck) only 32% of homes are detached houses and 63% are in buildings of five or more units; in Long Beach it is 41% and 36%; in ZIP 11550 (Hempstead) 50% of homes are owner-occupied, against 98% in Massapequa Park. A buyer in ZIP codes like the first two is more likely to be buying a co-op, a condominium or a unit in a multi-unit building, and our page on co-op and condo inspections explains that visit. A buyer in a ZIP like Massapequa Park’s is almost always buying a detached house, and the rest of this page is written mainly for that buyer.

Figures: Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates for 2020–2024 and the flood-insurance claims in OpenFEMA. A one- or two-point difference between survey figures is within the noise.

Fuel oil ranges from 8% of homes in Long Beach and 12% in Garden City to 80% in Levittown, with 41% in Bethpage, 40% in Hicksville and 40% in Wantagh. Gas is the main fuel in the village ZIP codes. Oil heat and flood claims do not line up. Levittown has the highest oil share and 16 claims; Long Beach has the lowest oil share and the most claims; Massapequa and Wantagh pair oil shares of 36% and 40% with 5,385 and 1,023 claims. The South Shore section below takes up the claims.

Who holds the file: Hempstead, Oyster Bay, the villages and the cities

Towns, incorporated villages and cities each issue their own permits and certificates, and which one holds a house’s file depends on the address. The Town of Hempstead’s rental registry covers the town outside its incorporated villages, and the Town of Oyster Bay’s department enforces its codes in unincorporated areas while incorporated villages run their own. The table lists what the municipalities we could read publish about certificates and related documents. We left out every fee amount.

Here is the question we could not answer. We found no source that says a Nassau town, village or city requires a certificate of occupancy or a compliance inspection before a one- or two-family house is sold, and none that says it does not. We could not open the municipal codes online when we researched this page, so we can show you which documents exist and cannot tell you which are required at a sale. We did not verify the rules of the Town of North Hempstead, the City of Glen Cove or villages such as Mineola, Valley Stream and Floral Park, and we state none for them. The practical steps do not depend on the answer. Ask your attorney to order the municipality’s search of the file for the exact address. Ask the seller for the certificate of occupancy, any letter in lieu and the permits for additions. And ask the building department, in writing if you can, what it issues or requires on a transfer. The state’s disclosure statement asks the seller whether certificates of occupancy exist and, if not, to explain.

The South Shore: Sandy, the flood map and the 50 percent rule

In Sandy, the National Hurricane Center logged 4.6 feet of water above ground at Freeport, the highest Nassau mark in its report, and 3 to 4 feet at Long Beach, Jones Beach and across the bay at Massapequa; the surge also overwhelmed and badly damaged the Bay Park sewage treatment plant (NHC, Hurricane Sandy report). The insurance file shows how widely that reached. 26,964 of Nassau’s 51,523 claims (52%) carry Sandy, 6,080 carry Irene and 208 carry Ida. The ten ZIP codes with the most claims are below. Among FEMA’s individual event labels, Sandy is the largest in every one of them; the last column adds many labels together, so it can be larger.

FEMA labels each claim with the event it attaches to it, and some claims carry no event, so the last column is everything else, including unnamed storms. A claim is a loss paid under a flood policy, so it appears only if the owner held a policy and filed. A ZIP with few claims is not necessarily dry, and one with many does not have a flood problem on every block. What the table does show is repetition: in Freeport the file records 2,657 Sandy claims, 1,226 Irene claims, 633 for the December Storm, and 276 for Gloria, a spread of storms and not one event.

Long Beach is mapped as a whole. The city says FEMA’s maps put the entire city in a flood zone as of 11 September 2009, that the higher-risk AE zone covers virtually all of Long Beach so lenders require flood insurance, and that because it participates in FEMA’s Community Rating System eligible policyholders get a 15% premium discount (City of Long Beach flood page). The Town of Hempstead’s page says a property owner with a mortgage in a Special Flood Hazard Area must carry flood insurance, that its post-disaster response areas were designated by the effects of Superstorm Sandy, and that its design flood elevation is the base flood elevation plus two feet of freeboard (Town of Hempstead flood page). The same page sets the rule that matters most to a buyer of a damaged or renovated house.

The page measures one case against replacement value and the other against market value, so ask the Building Department which measure it uses and how it values the house before you assume an old repair was small enough. Oyster Bay adds a document of its own: for work on a structure in a FEMA flood zone other than Area X, its residential permit sheet requires a signed and sealed appraisal of the dwelling’s market value, excluding land, prepared by a New York State licensed appraiser (Oyster Bay permit sheet). The edition of the code is also in play. The Hempstead page still cites the 2020 Residential Code, section 322, for flood-zone construction, while the State’s 2025 Uniform Code took effect on 31 December 2025 for permit applications (Department of State notice, as reproduced by the Town of Cortlandt), so ask which edition applies to a permit filed now.

For a buyer, the sequence is short. Check the address against FEMA’s flood map and ask the seller the questions the state’s statement puts: whether any of the property lies in the Special Flood Hazard Area, whether federal law requires flood insurance, whether there is a FEMA elevation certificate, and whether the seller ever filed a flood claim. Ask for permits and any appraisal for work after a storm. Then, because the Standards have us look at the grade beside the foundation, any visible sign of water penetration and the sump pump within reach (197-5.4, 5.12, 5.8), have the inspection look at the lowest level with that history in hand. We cannot tell you the flood zone from the house, and we do not rate insurability.

Water in Nassau: 46 public systems, a lead notice and a Magothy well field

Nassau County’s Department of Health, in a 2025 archived copy of its page, counts 46 public water systems and about 500 private wells in the county (Nassau County Department of Health). A ZIP code therefore does not identify your supplier. Two village reports show how much the contents differ.

Neither is a verdict on a house. A susceptibility rating is an assessment of how exposed a well field is, not a result at a tap, and the Garden City notice reports samples from homes with lead service lines, not from every home. The practical points are narrower. First, a buyer can ask whether the house’s service line is lead and whether the supplier has an inventory, which Garden City says it finished. Second, the state’s disclosure statement asks whether lead plumbing is present and where. Third, our report describes the visible water supply piping materials (197-5.8) but the service line from the street is exterior plumbing, which the Standards do not require us to observe, and we do not determine whether lead is present in plumbing or in water (197-5.16). A lab test of the tap is the way to put a number on a particular house; our water quality testing page explains it, and our lead page covers paint. EPA’s page on its lead and copper rule improvements says the agency’s final rule of October 2024 requires systems to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years (EPA); rule status changes, so check that page.

For the Hicksville and Levittown districts, whose reports cover 1,4-dioxane, PFOA and nitrate, see our Levittown and Hicksville page. The rules behind these numbers, New York’s 2020 limits and EPA’s 2024 rule and May 2026 proposals, are set out on our Long Island page.

Sewers, cesspools and where the nitrogen goes

A US Geological Survey report puts sewer coverage at roughly four-fifths of Nassau’s land area by 2019 (USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5047). That is area and not a share of homes, so it cannot tell you whether a given house is connected. The State’s Nassau watershed plan says most of the south shore is sewered, and that wastewater from onsite septic systems was the largest nitrogen source to all of the north-shore bays; for the south-shore bays other than West Bay it finds that wastewater is diverted out of the watershed and fertilizer, mostly from homes, is the largest source, while sewage from the Bay Park plant was the largest source to West Bay (DEC, Nassau County watershed plan for nitrogen). The same plan describes the typical onsite system in Nassau as a cesspool, or a septic tank connected to leaching rings, that drains to groundwater and does not remove nitrogen.

Unsewered pockets remain on the south shore. DEC’s 2025 summary says Point Lookout is one of the few areas on Nassau’s south shore that remains unsewered, relying on outdated cesspools and septic systems, and that a sewering feasibility study was nearing completion for its 800 homes and businesses; it also reports 195 successful installations to date under Nassau’s SEPTIC program, which funds eligible residents to replace conventional cesspools or septic systems with I/A systems (DEC 2025 partnership summary). Hicksville’s water district names unsewered, high-density residential land use as the reason for its wells’ high susceptibility to nitrate, which the Levittown and Hicksville page discusses.

In practice, find out the answer early. The state’s statement asks the seller to circle public sewer, private sewer, septic or cesspool, and for a septic system or cesspool its age, the date last pumped and the pumping frequency. Our report says whether waste disposal is public, private or unknown (197-5.8) but we are not required to observe a septic system, a cesspool or underground drainage. A sewered house is a candidate for a camera inspection of the line (sewer scope guide); a house on a cesspool is a candidate for pumping and inspection by a specialist, with the pumping receipts from the seller. In the Town of Oyster Bay, sewers, drywells and cesspools are on the town’s list of work that needs a permit.

Heating oil in Nassau: how common it is and what the towns list

About 26% of Nassau homes burn oil, and the ZIP table above shows the range. The State’s guidance on older tanks, which our Long Island page summarizes (DEC homeowner guide), turns on age and burial: a 275-gallon steel tank was not designed to be buried and will eventually corrode and leak. The Nassau County Department of Health’s older pages, which we could read only as archived copies of uncertain date, add two Nassau points. They say an oil tank 30 years old or older may be about ready to fail, and they ask for written notice at least seven days before an aboveground or basement tank of 1,100 gallons or less is removed (underground tanks · aboveground tanks). Check the current requirement with the Department before any work.

The towns we could read list heating equipment as permit work. Oyster Bay lists oil and gas tanks and oil and gas heating units among the work that needs a building permit, and its fee schedule flags residential A.C. and HVAC units as requiring a certificate of compliance (Oyster Bay building permits · fee schedule). Long Beach requires a permit to install or repair central heating and central air conditioning, including oil and gas (Long Beach). For a buyer the useful document is a permit and a closure record. The Standards have us describe the fuel, the equipment and the distribution, and report visible flue and chimney components, but not underground tanks (197-5.10, 197-5.16); our oil tank guide sets out the search options.

Cape, ranch, split-level and colonial: what each type means in Nassau

The census does not record style, and we found no source that gives Nassau’s share of Capes, ranches, split-levels or colonials, so we give none. What the records do support is how the types followed one another. The National Park Service study of postwar suburbs describes the first Levittown Cape Cod, built in 1947, as one and a half stories on a concrete slab (NPS suburbs study). Hofstra University’s Levittown collection records that the first Levitt design was a Cape Cod, that the 1949 model was restyled as a ranch and that Levitt changed the design every year. The NPS says late-1940s buyers wanted all living space on one floor with a basement for laundry and utilities, which shaped the ranch, and that the split-level put bedrooms on an upper level a half-story above the main living area, with a recreation room below.

The asbestos caution applies to all four. EPA lists roofing and siding shingles, vinyl floor tile and its adhesive, hot-water and steam pipe covering and the insulation on oil and coal furnaces among the places asbestos may be found in older homes, says that exposure occurs when material is disturbed or damaged, and says you generally cannot tell by looking (EPA). New York requires an asbestos survey before interior or exterior renovation, remodeling, repair or demolition work, with an exemption for an owner-occupied single-family dwelling where the homeowner does the work alone (NYS Department of Labor). So a buyer who plans to re-side or pull up the floors should ask about a survey before the contractor starts. Our asbestos guide explains the sampling.

Basements, sump pumps and radon

Nassau houses differ on the one feature this page cannot count: the census does not say how many have basements, and the Levitt houses, on slabs, had none. Where a house has one, the questions are the ones on our Island page: how deep the water table is at the address, what the seller knows about seepage, and whether a sump or ejector pump has been working. The state’s statement asks whether the structure has had water penetration or damage from seepage or a natural flood event, naming heavy rain, storm surge, tidal inundation and river overflow. We run any sump or ejector pump within reach and report visible signs of water penetration (197-5.8, 5.12), and our basement page describes the rest.

EPA places Nassau in Zone 3, the lowest radon zone, where the predicted average indoor level is below 2 picocuries per liter, and says all homes should be tested regardless of zone (EPA zone data · EPA New York map). The State Department of Health’s kit results since 1987 show 5.7% of 837 Nassau basements at or above the 4 picocuries per liter action level, and 1.2% of 246 first-floor tests (NYS DOH radon results by county). The State says 30,000 to 40,000 tests a year are done outside its program, so these figures are not a share of Nassau homes. For a slab house with no basement, the lowest lived-in level is the one to test. A home inspection does not include radon; see our radon testing page.

Old industrial sites and the groundwater under Nassau’s commercial strips

EPA lists several sites in Garden City, Garden City Park, Hicksville, Franklin Square and Bethpage as Superfund or corrective-action sites for groundwater contamination, and some now hold shopping centers and offices. A site on a list describes an area and a history, not an address, and a home in the same ZIP code may be untouched. Buyers should know the names, because groundwater under Long Island is the drinking-water supply. The table summarizes what EPA says.

Source: EPA, Superfund sites in reuse in New York, except as linked. What to do with this is limited and specific. The state’s disclosure form tells buyers worried about contamination to consider soil and groundwater testing of the property. A home inspection does not test soil, groundwater or indoor air for contaminants, and the Standards do not require us to evaluate geological or soil conditions (197-5.6). Your water supplier’s report shows what it found in the water it delivers. Our page on commercial inspection in Nassau County covers a commercial or mixed-use building near one of these sites, and explains what that work is and is not.

Permits for decks, garage conversions, pools and cesspools

Because we report what is in the house and do not decide whether it was permitted, a buyer should know which additions the towns say need a permit, and look for them. Oyster Bay lists a raised deck more than eight inches above grade, retaining walls two feet high or higher, oil and gas tanks, oil and gas heating units, conversion of garages to habitable space, sewers, drywells and cesspools, and in-ground or above-ground pools 18 inches or deeper (Town of Oyster Bay, building permits). Long Beach lists installing or replacing a roof, central heating and air conditioning, and bulkheading or docks (City of Long Beach). We did not verify the permit lists of the Town of Hempstead or the other municipalities, so we do not compare them.

Walk the house and the yard with that list in your hand. Is there a deck, a finished garage, a pool, a retaining wall, a new heating unit? For each, ask the seller for the permit and the certificate of completion or compliance. If a permit is missing, ask the building department what route it offers for work already built; Oyster Bay’s fee schedule lists a “Permit to Maintain Existing Structures”. In a home inspection in Nassau County we note additions that look unusual, how an addition joins the original house and whether the services were extended safely. The Standards do not let us say that work was or was not permitted.

Termites, carpenter ants and moisture in wood frames

Termites draw more inquiries in Nassau than any other insect, according to a fact sheet of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County last reviewed in 2003, which also says termites favor the heat around furnaces, chimneys and hot-water pipes. Cornell’s NYS IPM program says most problems begin where the house meets the soil and that carpenter ants indicate a moisture problem (Cornell NYS IPM). State law excludes pests from a home inspection, so a termite inspection is separate; our termite inspection page describes it.

Where a home inspection in Nassau County fits: the disclosure statement, the lead rule and closing

In Nassau a sale usually runs through attorneys, and the contract sets the inspection window. Under Real Property Law §462 the completed property condition disclosure statement must reach the buyer or the buyer’s agent before the buyer signs a binding contract. The seller need not investigate or inspect, and an “as is” sale remains open to the parties. Two further sections matter to you as a buyer: some transfers are exempt from the statement, among them court-ordered transfers, foreclosures, fiduciaries and transfers to a spouse or lineal relative, and a seller who learns the statement is materially inaccurate must deliver a revised one (§463 · §464). The statement is not a substitute for any inspection, and it tells you what the seller knows, not what is true.

Most Nassau houses will also come with the federal lead-paint disclosure. At least 79% of Nassau homes were built before 1970, and the rule applies to most pre-1978 private housing: the seller must give you EPA’s lead hazard pamphlet and disclose what is known about lead-based paint, and you have 10 days, unless you and the seller agree otherwise in writing, to have the house tested before you are bound (EPA real-estate disclosure · 40 CFR 745.110). The seller has no duty to test or remove paint. Foreclosure sales and housing built after 1977 are outside the rule. Take the 10 days seriously if the house is old; the home inspection does not determine whether lead paint is present.

At closing the seller delivers an affidavit of smoke-alarm compliance for a one- or two-family house, and you have ten days to report an alarm that is not operable, in which case the seller bears the cost of compliance (Executive Law §378). Carbon monoxide alarms are required in every one- and two-family dwelling where there is a carbon monoxide source (Amanda’s Law rule). Our report states whether detectors are present, not whether they work (197-5.9), so test them on move-in day.

Once you hire an inspector, you should have a written pre-inspection agreement (197-4.2), and the written report is due within five business days and stays confidential. The guide to the systems a New York inspection covers has the detail, our inspection contingency guide explains the clause, and you can confirm any inspector’s license with these steps.

Frequently asked questions

About the figures on this page

• The census figures (year built, heating fuel, building type and ownership) are 2020–2024 five-year estimates from the American Community Survey, for Nassau County and the 22 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas shown. They carry margins of error, so we round. Place names are the Postal Service’s mail-delivery names, not municipal boundaries. ZIP 11762 is shown with Nassau because FEMA’s file lists it under Nassau County.
• Flood-insurance claims are from the National Flood Insurance Program file on OpenFEMA (version 3), sorted by the ZIP code on each claim and the event FEMA labels it with. Some claims have no event label. They count insured losses only.
• Municipal, water-supplier, county, state and federal statements come from the pages linked where they are made; the Town, village and city pages and fee schedules vary in date, and the Hempstead fee schedule is a 2018 printing. The Nassau County Department of Health pages on oil tanks and public water supply are archived copies.
• We read the statutes, rules and agency pages cited here in October 2026. They change, so confirm the current text, and ask your attorney about your own sale.

More guides for Nassau County

These pages go deeper on specific places and services under Nassau County.

• Levittown and Hicksville: Postwar houses in Levittown and Hicksville, covering oil tanks, slab heating, additions and what the records show.
• Pre-listing inspection in Nassau County: For Nassau sellers, covering negotiating power, the property condition disclosure and town ordinances.
• Commercial inspection in Nassau County: Office, industrial and mixed-use buildings in Nassau County, and what a commercial inspection covers.

Booking a home inspection in Nassau County

Give us the address and tell us what you know: the municipality, whether the house is sewered, what heats it and whether it has had water. We will say where we would start and which add-on tests fit the house, and you can send the certificate of occupancy or the seller’s statement ahead of the visit.

You will find our New York State license number in the footer of every page. We inspect in Nassau, Suffolk, the five boroughs and Westchester, and you can ask for the walk-through in English, Urdu, Punjabi or Hindi.

To talk it through before booking, call 718-925-7071.