A lot of the older homes in Deep River are actually recycled military housing from Nobel, from when the nuclear reactor was first built. Those will be the 'oldest' houses. As the reactor was nearing completion, the management then built their own homes (around early 1960's) .... and then you'll have some newer homes from the 1980's. The most recent homes are built on the outskirts of town. Deep River has a grocery store (it's a tad on the expensive side but what we did was our main shopping once every two weeks in Pembroke or Petawawa... and then whatever we really needed inbetween, at Deep River). We got a lot of our meat at the Canex in Pet, it was the cheapest we could find anywhere. Plus, hubby/wife can pick up stuff in Petawawa at the grocery store there before they come home from work, if necessary.
Chalk River did have a really awesome butcher place/convenience store but it burnt down this past year. There is now one convenience store which comes in handy for late-night cravings, along with the truck stop with a 24/hour restaurant (which also comes in handy, when you don't feel like cooking... they make the best burgers!)
Chalk River and Deep River (known as "chalk" and "deep" in the area because saying "River" is just too much damn work), are only about 5 minutes from each other. The hospital is in Deep River and is a big asset. A lot of people will drive from Pembroke (30-min) or further because it's much less busy than the pembroke hospital. One night when I had pneumonia, I was the only patient in the emerge for over 7 hours!
You'd have to define "expensive"... because overall it's WAY cheaper than Petawawa... we had an awesome house by Petawawa/Pembroke standards (was built in 1994, 5 bedrooms, CLEAN, hardwood floor, beautiful kitchen, jacuzzi tub, pool) for $127 and to find the same house in Pembroke/Petawawa, we would have had to spend at least $300 000. I think you need to get out and look and do not go by what your real-estate agent says.
I haven't checked MLS lately but... I just took a quick look a second ago. Only 4 houses for sale in Chalk River.... which doesn't surprise me. They get sold pretty quick these days because people are realising it's not too bad to live at. If you can wait until posting season, it'll go up to about 20 homes or so and you'll have better selection.
The big difference between Pet and Chalk will be your taxes... water & sewer.... size of land.... and # of rooms/size of house overall.
