Insulation and air sealing for Standish homes: attics, crawl spaces, rim joists and walls, starting with a free assessment of the R-value you actually have. The typical home here dates to the early-1980s, and 17% of its 4,925 homes went up before 1940.
Standish runs to about 59 square miles and roughly 10,662 people. It sits about 18 miles northwest of downtown Portland. Around 4,925 housing units sit inside those boundaries. The community dates back to 1785. We cover ZIP codes 04084 and 04085.
No completed job in Standish is logged in our records yet, and this page will say so until one is.
The typical home in Standish 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.
We work across Standish rather than one corner of it — Standish Corner, Sebago Lake Village, Steep Falls, Richville, Elmwood, Standish Neck, Harmon Beach, Wards Cove and Two Trails 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.
Standish takes in Sebago Lake Village on the lake plus Standish Corner and Steep Falls, and much of the town is sandy plains covered with pine. Trains once met lake steamboats at Sebago Lake Station, and Frye Island in the lake was set off from Standish as its own town in 1998.
The Census Bureau estimates 4,925 homes in Standish. 822 of them (17%) went up before 1940 — 33rd 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 50% predate 1980. For Cumberland County as a whole the pre-1940 share is 23%, so Standish sits below it.
Of 3,746 occupied homes, 0% heat with utility gas and 3% with electricity; another 26% burn propane or other tank gas. Electric heat here is less common than across the county (15%), and ranks 59th 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.
91% of occupied homes are owner-occupied and 86% of all homes are single-family detached houses, with 351 mobile homes in the count. On a housing mix like this, the likely starting points are the attic, which is where most houses here start.
| Built | Homes | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1940 | 822 | 17% | |
| 1940s | 125 | 3% | |
| 1950s | 408 | 8% | |
| 1960s | 323 | 7% | |
| 1970s | 766 | 16% | |
| 1980s | 673 | 14% | |
| 1990s | 670 | 14% | |
| 2000s | 684 | 14% | |
| 2010s | 419 | 9% | |
| 2020 or later | 35 | 1% |
4,925 homes, Census ACS 2020–2024 (B25034, B25040, B25003); 3,746 occupied.
1,343 of Standish's 4,925 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.
Standish enforces the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (2021 IECC with Maine amendments). Standish, with 10,244 residents in 2020, must enforce the state code under 10 M.R.S. the town's own code pages still describe the 2015 edition, but the 2021 energy code has applied since April 7, 2025.
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 insulation table (R402.1.3), climate zone 6; Maine's energy chapter changed the wood-frame wall entry and left the attic at R-60.
Nothing Standish publishes settles this. Its permit lists name the work types it cares about, and insulation is not among them in either direction. Section 181-53 of the Land Use Ordinance requires a permit to add to or structurally alter a building; a job that changes nothing structural is not named either way. So we ask the department directly before the first day on site, and whatever comes back, pulling it is our job rather than yours.
The published number is 207-642-4571. The department page is here.
Permitting is on us, not on you.
Heating fuel in Standish, by the Census Bureau's count: fuel oil or kerosene in 61% of occupied homes, electricity in 3%, propane or tank gas in 26% (Census ACS 2020–2024). Efficiency Maine pays the same rebates in Standish 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 Cumberland County can apply to Community Concepts Inc (207-795-4065) for free weatherization through MaineHousing instead. Every condition is in the rebate guide. The Cumberland County page compares the towns.
Every layer of an insulated attic, explained
Standish borders Gorham, Windham, Buxton, Hollis, Limington and Baldwin. These are the ones we also cover, each with its own energy code and permit rule:
Elsewhere in Cumberland County we also cover:
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.
| City | Energy code | Attic R required | Permit to insulate | Building dept. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standish | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-642-4571 |
| Gorham | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-222-1605 |
| Windham | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-894-5960 |
| Buxton | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-929-3046 |
| Hollis | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-929-2251 |
| Limington | Maine code, 2021 IECC | R-60 | Not published | 207-637-5209 |
| Baldwin | Not published | — | Not for an attic top-up | 207-625-3581 |
All 25 Cumberland County jurisdictions side by side →
Standish enforces the Maine code, 2021 IECC, which sets R-60 for an attic in new work. That code also reaches work on existing houses, not only new ones.
Not on paper: Standish names neither a permit nor an exemption for insulation, so one call to the department at 207-642-4571 settles it first.
The statewide Efficiency Maine rebates: $2,000 to $4,000 per insulated zone of 500 square feet or more, by income tier, and $150 to $300 for attic air sealing; the work has to be done by a Residential Registered Vendor and the attic has to start at R-21 or less. The federal 25C credit ended for work placed in service after December 31, 2025.
The typical home in Standish dates to around the early-1980s; the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 median year built is 1980. Of its 4,925 homes, 17% went up before 1940 and 23% in 2000 or later. It is a median for the place, not a survey of individual houses.
Code and permit facts checked October 24, 2026, rebates October 24, 2026; housing: Census ACS 2020–2024. Sources: standishme.gov (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) · standish.portal.iworq.net (2) · ecode360.com (2, 3, 4) · townofnaples.org · legislature.maine.gov · maine.gov (2) · en.wikipedia.org (2) · zip-codes.com · tigerweb.geo.census.gov · efficiencymaine.com (2, 3, 4) · energystar.gov · data.census.gov. These change; confirm with the building department at 207-642-4571 or Efficiency Maine at 866-376-2463 first.
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