Insulation in Ogunquit, Maine

Insulation and air sealing in Ogunquit

Ogunquit runs to about 4.1 square miles and roughly 1,379 people. It sits about 34 miles southwest of downtown Portland. Around 2,093 housing units sit inside those boundaries. The community dates back to 1980. We cover ZIP code 03907.

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

The housing stock in Ogunquit

The typical home in Ogunquit dates to around the late-1970s. Postwar building here often meant three or four inches of fiberglass and no attempt at air sealing. If nobody has touched it since, that is what is still up there.

We work across Ogunquit rather than one corner of it — Perkins Cove, Ogunquit Beach, Footbridge Beach, Israels Head, Oarweed Cove, Walnut Hill and Little Beach 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.

Ogunquit, a village of Wells until it became its own town in 1980, is a small coastal resort with a mile-and-a-half barrier beach, the Marginal Way cliff walk and Perkins Cove, a fishing cove that became an art colony after 1898. Seaside hotels and inns went up as summer crowds grew, and the town sits right on the open Atlantic.

Ogunquit homes in the Census numbers

The Census Bureau estimates 2,093 homes in Ogunquit. 415 of them (20%) went up before 1940 — 23rd of 64 places on this site for pre-1940 housing. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any single decade since, and 52% predate 1980. For York County as a whole the pre-1940 share is 20%, so Ogunquit sits level with it.

Of 666 occupied homes, 1% heat with utility gas and 16% with electricity; another 11% burn propane or other tank gas. Electric heat here is more common than across the county (10%), and ranks 7th of 64 on this site. Efficiency Maine's insulation rebates do not depend on the fuel or the utility, but the fuel decides what the work saves, so the assessment asks how the house is heated.

94% of occupied homes are owner-occupied and 75% of all homes are single-family detached houses, with 55 mobile homes in the count. Read together, those numbers point toward the attic, which is where most houses here start.

2,093 homes, Census ACS 2020–2024 (B25034, B25040, B25003); 666 occupied.

Sealing comes first in Ogunquit

596 of Ogunquit's 2,093 homes (28%) 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 Ogunquit

Ogunquit enforces the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (2021 IECC with Maine amendments). Ogunquit's Building Construction ordinance (Section 36-12) adopts the state code by reference; with 1,577 residents the town is not required to enforce it, and does.

For new work, the attic number under that edition is R-60, with walls at R-30, or R-20 + R-10 continuous, or R-13 + R-15 continuous, or R-20 continuous. Set that against the Department of Energy, which recommends R60 for an uninsulated attic in this climate zone and R49 for one that already has a few inches.

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 Ogunquit publishes settles this. Its permit lists name the work types it cares about, and insulation is not among them in either direction. Section 36-13 requires a permit for construction, alteration and renovation but exempts repairs that involve no structural alteration and no electrical, plumbing or mechanical work. 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 Ogunquit

The published number is 207-646-9326. The department page is here.

Permitting is on us, not on you.

Rebates an Ogunquit homeowner can actually use

In Ogunquit, 70% of occupied homes heat with fuel oil or kerosene, 11% with propane or other tank gas and 16% with electricity (Census ACS 2020–2024). Efficiency Maine pays the same rebates in Ogunquit 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. Only a Residential Registered Vendor can do rebated work, the claim goes in within six months, and a lifetime limit of $8,600 per home applies. Income-qualified households in York County can apply to York County Community Action Corp (207-324-5762) for free weatherization through MaineHousing instead. See the rebate guide for the tiers and the checklist, and the York County page for the county.

Nearby

Ogunquit borders Wells, York 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 Ogunquit 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 1 of the 7 publishes a permit rule for insulation.

All 29 York County jurisdictions side by side →

Common questions about insulation in Ogunquit

Code and permit facts checked October 24, 2026, rebates October 24, 2026; housing: Census ACS 2020–2024. Sources: ogunquit.gov (2, 3, 4) · 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 207-646-9326 or Efficiency Maine at 866-376-2463 first.