PSE and Seattle-Area Crawl Space Insulation Rebates: 2026 Amounts and Eligibility

Amounts last checked November 10, 2026 on each utility's own page. Puget Sound Energy says its rebates are a tariffed service that can change or end without notice, so confirm the current amount with the contractor or on the utility's page before you budget around it.

What actually qualifies

This is where most homeowners get the wrong idea, so it is worth being blunt: no utility around Seattle rebates "crawl space encapsulation." The programs pay for specific energy measures, per square foot or per home. A crawl space project typically touches these:

• Floor insulation — insulation installed in the floor joists above the crawl space. This is the main one, and both PSE and Snohomish PUD pay for it.
• Floor air sealing — sealing the gaps between the crawl space and the house. PSE lists it separately.
• Duct sealing and duct insulation — where heating ducts run through the crawl space. PSE and Snohomish PUD both list duct sealing.

What does not earn a rebate: the ground cover or vapor barrier, a dehumidifier, sealing the foundation vents, drainage work, sump pumps, and mold remediation. None of the utility pages lists them. Those are moisture-control measures, not energy measures, and they are frequently the majority of an encapsulation bid.

The practical consequence is that a rebate offsets one line of your project, not a percentage of the total. On a $10,650 encapsulation in a PSE-heated home that qualifies, the floor insulation rebate is worth about $3,000 to $3,750 across the 1,200 to 1,500 square foot reference crawl space, and only if the job includes new floor insulation at all. That is worth claiming, and it is not a reason to choose encapsulation.

2026 PSE rebate amounts

The measures on Puget Sound Energy's weatherization rebate page that a crawl space project can touch:

PSE's conditions, as its page gives them:

• PSE electricity or PSE natural gas is the primary source of the home’s space heating.
• A single-family home of four units or fewer, or a manufactured home; new construction does not qualify.
• For floor insulation: a site-built home built 1989 or before, with 4 inches or less of existing insulation, finished to R-30 or a full joist cavity, whichever comes first.
• Existing insulation may not be removed to qualify, and the thermal boundary may not be moved.
• The work is done by a PSE Recommended Energy Professional or another PSE Trade Ally, who takes the rebate off the invoice; PSE does not pay the customer, and self-installed work does not qualify.
• The rebate cannot be more than the price of the work.

Duct sealing has its own test: the home must have ducted primary heat and no mastic already on the supply ducts, and at least 30% of the supply ducts outside the building envelope and accessible, which is often the case where ducts run through a crawl space.

If money is tight, ask about income-qualified help before paying for anything. PSE's Home Weatherization Assistance offers free whole-home upgrades to income-qualified customers, delivered by local agencies: the Seattle Office of Housing for Seattle residents, the King County Housing Authority for the rest of King County, and Snohomish County's weatherization program.

Snohomish County PUD and Seattle City Light

Snohomish County PUD pays $1.00 per square foot for insulation in electrically heated homes it serves, and $5.00 per linear foot of duct sealing in a single-family home, up to $450. Its conditions:

• The home is electrically heated and served by Snohomish County PUD.
• The customer owns a single-family or manufactured home, or a townhouse or condominium in a building of up to four attached dwellings.
• For floor insulation: existing insulation of R-11 or less, brought to R-30.
• The work is done by a PUD registered contractor, who includes the rebate in the bill.

The PUD's page states no cap on the insulation rebate and lists no rebate for a ground cover, vapor barrier or air sealing. A Snohomish County home heated with PSE natural gas falls under PSE's rules instead, because both programs turn on the heating fuel.

Seattle City Light. Seattle City Light lists no standard insulation, air sealing or duct sealing rebate for single-family homes. Its residential page advises sealing and insulating floors over crawl spaces, and sends insulation help to HomeWise, the City of Seattle's weatherization program. HomeWise is free for income-qualified households: homeowners or renters inside Seattle, whatever their heat source, and City Light customers outside the city whose homes are electrically heated. The program chooses and manages the contractor.

Programs that do not cover this work. Washington’s HEAR program pays toward electric equipment such as heat pumps and the wiring they need; insulation, air sealing and vapor barriers are not on its list. The federal Home Energy Rebates (HOMES and HARP) had not launched in Washington when this was checked; insulation and air sealing will be covered once they do, but the state says the rebates will not be retroactive, so work done before launch will not qualify. And the federal Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit could be claimed only for improvements made through December 31, 2025. PSE's page still mentions a federal tax credit; the IRS's own page is the one to go by.

The thresholds that decide eligibility

Two numbers decide whether your crawl space qualifies at all, and the two utilities measure the first one differently:

• Existing insulation. PSE: an average of 4 inches or less at the thermal boundary, in a site-built home built 1989 or before, and none of it removed to qualify. Snohomish PUD: R-11 or less. If your crawl space was already upgraded, you are not eligible, and anything wet, fallen or rodent-damaged is worth measuring rather than assuming.
• New insulation. PSE: R-30 or a full joist cavity, whichever comes first. Snohomish PUD: R-30.

Do not assume a code-compliant install is automatically a rebate-eligible one. Washington's energy code sets R-30 for floors in new construction and additions. Altered parts of the building envelope meet the new-construction values, with exceptions where the building’s energy use is not increased: a floor cavity exposed during construction need only be filled with insulation, and nothing is required where the floor cavity is not exposed. So on an existing house, a contractor can fill the joist bays, comply with the code that governs the job, and still finish below the R-30 Snohomish PUD requires. If you intend to claim a rebate, put the utility's target in the written scope before the work starts. Why your floors are cold over a crawl space sets the code and the rebate targets side by side.

One sequencing detail matters more than any other: the existing insulation has to be documented to prove eligibility, and PSE does not allow it to be removed to qualify. Once the old batts are in a dumpster, the evidence is gone. This is why the rebate conversation belongs in the inspection, not after the install.

What a rebate is actually worth

Run the numbers on the reference crawl space this site prices rather than a percentage. For floor insulation:

• A 1,200 sq ft floor earns about $3,000 from PSE in a qualifying PSE-heated home, or $1,200 from Snohomish PUD in a qualifying electrically heated home.
• A 1,500 sq ft floor earns about $3,750 from PSE in a qualifying PSE-heated home, or $1,500 from Snohomish PUD in a qualifying electrically heated home.

PSE's rate reaches its $5,000 cap at 2,000 square feet of floor, so a larger crawl space earns no more.

The comparison almost nobody publishes is the one that matters at the point of decision: what the rebate covers of the job. Floor insulation replacement — batt removal, new R-30 batt and rim joist sealing — is modeled at $2,500 to $5,825 before sales tax for the reference crawl space of 1,200 to 1,500 square feet. Across that project, installed cost works out at roughly $1.67 to $4.85 per square foot, which is the figure the per-square-foot rebate should be read against.

The rebate against the price

Four things this table is not. The rebate is paid on floor area for the insulation measure, while the project band also covers removal, disposal and rim joist sealing, so the comparison is exact only for the insulation itself. The cost side is a modeled estimate rather than a collected quote, and the methodology page says so in those words. PSE's rebate cannot be more than the price of the work, so where the table says a rebate would cover a low-end job, the most it pays is that price. And the cost side does not scale with floor area: $2,500 to $5,825 is one modeled band for the whole reference project, spanning access, condition and scope rather than square footage. Read each row as this project, against what a floor of this size earns, not as a prediction that a bigger crawl space is a cheaper job.

Read the PSE rows against the PUD rows. The same crawl space and the same batts earn $2.50 per square foot or $1.00 per square foot depending on which utility supplies the heating fuel and whether the home meets that utility's conditions.

That is a meaningful discount on a job you were doing anyway. It is not, on its own, a reason to insulate a crawl space that does not need it, and it does not change the economics of a full encapsulation very much, because the liner, the vent sealing, the exhaust fan Washington's code asks of a sealed crawl space and any dehumidifier are not rebated. See the 2026 cost guide for what each service costs before rebates, and what a floor insulation replacement scope involves for the work these figures price.

Four ways homeowners lose the rebate

Every one of these is avoidable, and all four come straight from the utilities' own conditions:

1. The wrong installer. PSE pays only through a PSE Recommended Energy Professional or Trade Ally, and Snohomish PUD only through its registered contractors. Self-installed work does not qualify, and neither does work by a contractor outside the program, however good it is.
2. Old insulation removed before anyone measured it. PSE does not allow existing insulation to be removed to qualify, and both utilities need the existing level known. If nobody measured and photographed it before demolition, proving eligibility afterward is difficult.
3. Moving the thermal boundary. PSE's floor rebate does not allow the thermal boundary to be moved. A sealed crawl space that insulates the walls instead of the floor falls outside it, and Washington's energy code gives no insulation value for crawl space walls either.
4. The wrong heating fuel. PSE's rebate needs PSE electricity or PSE natural gas as the primary space heat; Snohomish PUD's needs an electrically heated home. A home heated mainly by oil, propane or wood, or by another utility, is outside both, whatever the address.

How to claim it

The sequence that works:

1. Confirm which utility supplies your primary heating fuel, from the heating bill, before anything else.
2. Raise the rebate during the inspection, not after. Ask the contractor to measure and photograph the existing insulation while it is still in place.
3. Ask whether the contractor is in the program: a PSE Recommended Energy Professional or Trade Ally, or a Snohomish PUD registered contractor. If not, the rebate is not available through them. Check their Washington registration with L&I Verify either way.
4. Get the scope in writing with the target stated: R-30 or a full joist cavity for PSE, R-30 for Snohomish PUD, insulation in the floor.
5. Check the invoice: both utilities have the contractor take the rebate off the bill, so it should appear as a line on the invoice, not as a promise of a check later.
6. If your household may be income-qualified, ask HomeWise, PSE's Home Weatherization Assistance or Snohomish County's weatherization program before paying for the work yourself.

If your crawl space insulation is wet, sagging, or missing, you may be both under the eligibility threshold and overdue for the work. A free in-home inspection will document the existing insulation and the square footage before you commit to anything, and the written, no-obligation quote should state the target R-value so you can check it against the thresholds above.