Insulation in Kennebunkport, Maine

Insulation and air sealing in Kennebunkport

Kennebunkport runs to about 21 square miles and roughly 3,684 people. It sits about 22 miles southwest of downtown Portland. Around 2,907 housing units sit inside those boundaries. The community dates back to 1653. We cover ZIP codes 04046 and 04014.

No completed job in Kennebunkport is logged in our records yet, and this page will say so until one is.

The housing stock in Kennebunkport

The typical home in Kennebunkport dates to around the early-1980s. Houses of this vintage usually got batts or blown fiber at whatever the standard of the day was, which is well short of what is recommended now. Most are one top-up away from being right.

The Ocean Avenue summer colony is known for well-preserved early-20th-century shingle-style cottages.

We work across Kennebunkport rather than one corner of it — Dock Square, Cape Porpoise, Goose Rocks Beach, Cape Arundel, Walker's Point, Turbats Creek, Wildes District, Burbank Hill, Town House Corners and Goat Island included. Construction and vintage change between them, sometimes by thirty years and a whole different framing method, which decides whether a wall can be dense-packed at all.

Kennebunkport began as a shipbuilding and fishing town on the Kennebunk River and has been a summer colony since the 1870s; the Cape Arundel Summer Colony Historic District along Ocean Avenue holds many well-preserved shingle-style cottages from the early 1900s. Its shore from Cape Arundel to Cape Porpoise and Goose Rocks Beach faces the open Atlantic, and much of the housing near Goose Rocks Beach was rebuilt after the Great Fires of 1947.

Kennebunkport homes in the Census numbers

The Census Bureau estimates 2,907 homes in Kennebunkport. 380 of them (13%) went up before 1940 — 46th of 64 places on this site for pre-1940 housing. The 1980s were the busiest decade, adding 422 of today's homes (15%); 47% predate 1980 and 25% were built in 2000 or later. For York County as a whole the pre-1940 share is 20%, so Kennebunkport sits below it.

Of 1,847 occupied homes, 0% heat with utility gas and 20% with electricity; another 27% burn propane or other tank gas. Electric heat here is more common than across the county (10%), and ranks 3rd of 64 on this site. Whoever comes out will ask what heats the house first: the rebate is the same on any fuel, but the saving is not.

81% of occupied homes are owner-occupied and 90% of all homes are single-family detached houses. With houses like these, the conversations we expect most are about the attic, which is where most houses here start.

2,907 homes, Census ACS 2020–2024 (B25034, B25040, B25003); 1,847 occupied.

Sealing comes first in Kennebunkport

790 of Kennebunkport's 2,907 homes (27%) were built in the 1980s and 1990s. The gaps in houses of that age are the parts nobody sealed: batts stuffed into the rim joist, bare spots over cathedral and tray ceilings, soffit vents buried with no baffles, can lights punched through the ceiling plane. A top-up plus a day of sealing usually covers it.

What the energy code requires in Kennebunkport

Kennebunkport enforces the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (2021 IECC with Maine amendments). Kennebunkport's Land Use Ordinance (Section 240-6.18) adopts and enforces the state code; with 3,629 residents the town is not required to, and has chosen to.

That edition sets R-60 for the attic in new work, and R-30, or R-20 + R-10 continuous, or R-13 + R-15 continuous, or R-20 continuous for walls. The Department of Energy's recommendation for this climate zone is no lower: R60 for an attic with nothing in it, R49 where a few inches are already down.

The 2021 IECC, Table R402.1.3, zone 6, as amended by Maine's energy rule, 08-003 C.M.R.

Do you need a permit to insulate here?

Nothing Kennebunkport publishes settles this. Its permit lists name the work types it cares about, and insulation is not among them in either direction. Section 240-11.3 of Kennebunkport's Land Use Ordinance exempts normal maintenance, repairs, re-siding and decorative changes, but insulation is not on the list; renovation permits cost $14 per $1,000 of estimated cost with a $40 minimum. So we ask the department directly before the first day on site, and whatever comes back, pulling it is our job rather than yours.

Permits and inspections in Kennebunkport

The published number is 207-967-1605. The department page is here.

Permitting is on us, not on you.

Rebates a Kennebunkport homeowner can actually use

Heating fuel in Kennebunkport, by the Census Bureau's count: fuel oil or kerosene in 50% of occupied homes, electricity in 20%, propane or tank gas in 27% (Census ACS 2020–2024). Efficiency Maine pays the same rebates in Kennebunkport as anywhere else in the state: $2,000 per attic, wall or basement zone with 500 square feet or more insulated at any income, $3,000 for a verified moderate-income household and $4,000 for a low-income one, plus $150 to $300 for sealing the attic's air leaks. The work has to be done by an Efficiency Maine Residential Registered Vendor, and the attic has to start at R-21 or below and finish at R-49 or more. Income-qualified households in York County can apply to York County Community Action Corp (207-324-5762) for free weatherization through MaineHousing instead. Every condition is in the rebate guide. The York County page compares the towns.

Nearby

Kennebunkport borders Biddeford, Arundel, Kennebunk, Kennebunk River and Atlantic Ocean. These are the ones we also cover, each with its own energy code and permit rule:

Elsewhere in York County we also cover:

How Kennebunkport compares with its neighbors

Maine sets the residential energy code statewide, so the attic figure is R-60 wherever it is published here; what changes is the permit desk, and none of the 7 publishes a permit rule for insulation.

All 29 York County jurisdictions side by side →

Common questions about insulation in Kennebunkport

Code and permit facts checked October 24, 2026, rebates October 24, 2026; housing: Census ACS 2020–2024. Sources: kennebunkportme.gov (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) · ecode360.com (2, 3, 4) · legislature.maine.gov · www2.census.gov (2, 3) · maine.gov (2) · en.wikipedia.org (2, 3) · prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com · efficiencymaine.com (2, 3, 4) · energystar.gov · data.census.gov. These change; confirm with the building department at 207-967-1605 or Efficiency Maine at 866-376-2463 first.