Sweet Hollow to Route 110.
Wikipedia's history says the area was known as Sunsquams, then Samuel Ketcham's Valley, then Sweet Hollow, probably for its honey bees; the name Melville first shows up in school records in 1854, possibly from the Latin mel, honey. A Presbyterian church went up in 1829 at Old Country and Sweet Hollow Roads. Office building along Route 110 took off in the 1960s, and today Melville and Hauppauge are Suffolk's two main business centers, with U.S. headquarters for companies such as Canon, Nikon, Henry Schein and Newsday. In 2026 NYU Langone Health announced a new hospital on the former Huntington Quadrangle site. The hamlet covers 12.1 square miles along the Nassau line, crossed by the Long Island Expressway, the Northern State Parkway and Route 110.
Newer homes, more townhouses and condos.
The Census Bureau's latest five-year survey counts about 7,500 homes, with a median year built of 1983. 52% were built in 1980 or later, and 35% since 2000; 15% went up in the 1950s, 15% in the 1960s and 14% in the 1970s. 59% are single-family detached houses, 23% are attached townhouses and 15% are in buildings of five or more units. 88% are owner-occupied.
That mix changes the calls. In 1980s to 2000s homes, the common jobs are water heaters at the end of their life, fixture valves and supply lines, and slow leaks behind finished walls, not 70-year-old drain lines. In attached homes, a leak can show up in a neighbor's ceiling first, so shut the water off and call. In the third of homes built in the 1950s and 1960s, the usual old-pipe problems apply: original drain lines, galvanized or early copper supply pipe, worn shutoff valves.
Heating fuel.
The ACS shows 73% of Melville homes heat with utility gas, 14% with fuel oil and 9% with electricity. We do the gas lines for ranges, dryers and gas water heaters, and for oil-to-gas switches. We don't sell or deliver oil.
Mostly cesspools and septic; a few sewered areas.
Laying Suffolk County's sewer-district map over the Census boundary, about 8% of Melville is in Suffolk County Sewer District 5 (Strathmore Huntington) and about 3% in the Southwest Sewer District, roughly 11% in all. The rest, most of the hamlet, is outside any sewer district, so those homes drain to cesspools or septic systems. If every drain in the house slows at once, we clear the main line to find out whether it's the pipe or the cesspool. If it's the cesspool itself, you'll need a cesspool or septic contractor; we don't do cesspool work. Since July 1, 2019, Suffolk County hasn't allowed a failed cesspool to be replaced with another cesspool. Not sure which you have? Look for a sewer district charge on your tax bill. FEMA's flood map puts none of Melville in the high-risk flood zone.
Water: South Huntington Water District, mostly.
The district serves all of Melville by its own description, and EPA's service-area map puts about 84% of residents on it, with about 16% on the Dix Hills Water District (check your bill). South Huntington's May 2026 report on 2025 water says it served 81,760 people from 18 active wells in the Glacial and Magothy aquifers. It adds sodium hydroxide to cut corrosion, runs air strippers and carbon filters for volatile organic chemicals, and says four of its wells exceed the 1,4-dioxane limit; it runs advanced oxidation treatment for 1,4-dioxane at three plants, including Plant No. 8 in Melville, and is building a fourth. Delivered water stayed under the limits: 1,4-dioxane up to 0.96 micrograms per liter (limit 1.0), PFOS up to 2.47 parts per trillion (limit 10), nitrate 0.42 to 7.9 mg/L (limit 10). Total hardness was only 2.7 to 54.6 mg/L, which is soft, and iron was low. The district has found no lead service lines; its state inventory lists 343 galvanized lines on the customer side and 394 lines of unknown material out of 17,547. The report also notes a missed third-quarter 2025 test at one well, which the district says posed no immediate risk.
Who fixes the water line.
South Huntington's ordinance says the district maintains the service up to the property line, the owner is responsible from the property line, including the meter pit, and repairs must be made by a licensed plumber; brand-new water services must be installed by a contractor who has a performance bond on file with the district. In the Dix Hills Water District part, only district staff or a district-bonded, Town of Huntington-licensed plumber may work between the main and the meter pit. Leaks inside the house are ours to fix. Water emergencies: South Huntington (631) 427-8190, 24 hours; Dix Hills district office (631) 421-1812.
Permits and licensing: Town of Huntington.
Melville is an unincorporated hamlet. The town plumbing code requires a Town of Huntington permit to install, repair or modify plumbing or gas piping, and a plumbing license issued by the town to do the work. Owners of one- and two-family homes may do their own plumbing, but not gas piping.
