Free Attic Insulation in New Orleans: Do You Qualify for Income-Based Weatherization?
If your summer Entergy bill is climbing and your attic has never been touched, there is a route worth checking before you spend anything. Louisiana runs a federally funded weatherization programme that covers insulation and air sealing at no cost for households that qualify on income.
It is real, it is administered locally, and it is not well advertised. Here is how it works, what it covers, and the honest limits on it.
Two separate programmes, often confused
The Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) is the one that installs insulation at no cost for income-qualified households. It is federally funded and administered in this state by the Louisiana Housing Corporation.
Energy Smart is the New Orleans utility efficiency programme, created by the New Orleans City Council and administered by Entergy New Orleans. It offers rebates on measures including attic insulation and air sealing, and it has an income-qualified track. Programme amounts and eligibility tests change by programme year, so those figures need to come from the programme rather than from a website.
They are different pots of money with different rules. You can look at both.
The Weatherization Assistance Program: who qualifies
Eligibility is based on household income. The Louisiana Housing Corporation published the following maximum income figures for programme year 2025. Confirm the current year’s limits when you apply, since these are updated periodically.
| Household size | Maximum income (2025 programme year) |
|---|---|
| 1 | $31,300 |
| 2 | $42,300 |
| 3 | $53,300 |
| 4 | $64,300 |
| 5 | $75,300 |
| 6 | $86,300 |
| 7 | $97,300 |
| 8 | $108,300 |
| 9 | $119,300 |
| 10 | $130,300 |
Priority groups
Meeting the income test makes you eligible. Some households are moved up the queue. Priority consideration goes to:
- People aged 60 and over.
- Families with children aged 17 and under.
- Individuals with disabilities as established under the Social Security Act.
- Households with a high energy burden, meaning energy costs consume a large share of household income.
What the programme covers
The Louisiana Housing Corporation describes the covered measures as insulation installation, air sealing, weather-stripping, duct sealing and other energy-saving measures. Provider agencies describe the same work as installing insulation in walls and attics, reducing air infiltration and pressure imbalances, sealing and repairing ductwork, and tuning and repairing heating and cooling units.
For a typical New Orleans house, that means the three things that matter most in this climate are on the list: the attic, the air leaks, and the ducts.
The programme is provided at no cost to households that qualify.
What it does not cover
Being straight about this saves disappointment:
- Availability is not guaranteed. The Louisiana Housing Corporation states this plainly. Funding is finite and demand is high, so waiting lists are normal.
- The programme chooses the measures, not you. Work is prioritised by an assessment of the home, so a household that wants spray foam specifically may be approved for a different measure that scores better on the programme’s own cost-effectiveness test.
- Serious structural or roof problems can stop the work. An agency will not insulate an attic under an actively leaking roof. Those repairs usually have to happen first, and they are generally not part of the weatherization scope.
- It is not a fast process. Application, verification, assessment and scheduling all take time.
How to apply
Applications go through the local provider agency for your parish, not through the state office directly. The Louisiana Housing Corporation maintains the list of weatherization service providers, with seventeen local agencies delivering the programme across every parish. Check that list for the agency covering Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany, or your own parish before calling, since coverage is assigned by parish.
Have the paperwork ready. Provider agencies ask for:
- The last four consecutive check stubs for every employed household member.
- Proof of income for all household members.
- Proof of your present address.
- Recent utility bills.
- Valid photo identification.
- Social Security cards for everyone in the household.
Gathering all of it before you apply is the single biggest thing you control in how fast this moves.
The Energy Smart route in New Orleans
If you are an Entergy New Orleans customer, ask about Energy Smart separately. The programme offers rebates on attic insulation, air sealing and duct sealing, and it has an income-qualified track for households that meet its test.
We are deliberately not printing rebate amounts or the income threshold here, because those figures change by programme year and we will not publish a number we cannot confirm is current. Call the programme and ask.
Energy Smart programme line: 504-229-6868. That is the programme’s number, not ours.
Four questions worth asking on that call:
- What is the current rebate on attic insulation and air sealing for this programme year?
- What is the income test for the income-qualified track, and what documents prove it?
- Are gas-heated homes eligible for the insulation and air sealing measures?
- Does a participating contractor have to do the work for the rebate to apply?
LIHEAP is a different thing again
Homeowners searching for help with energy costs often land on LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. LIHEAP helps with utility bills. It does not insulate your attic.
In Orleans Parish, LIHEAP is handled by Total Community Action at 1410 S. Norman C. Francis Parkway, New Orleans. Their LIHEAP line is 504-875-2660, office hours 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Thursday and 8:00 am to 4:00 pm Friday. Applications are taken in person, not by phone or email.
Bill assistance and weatherization work well together. One lowers this month’s bill. The other lowers every future bill.
What happens once you are approved
Expect an assessment before any work. A weatherization assessment typically covers the attic, the crawl space where there is one, the duct system and the heating and cooling equipment, and it establishes which measures the house actually needs.
The work that follows is targeted at the biggest losses first. In this housing stock, that usually means sealing air leaks before adding insulation, because insulation laid over a leaky ceiling does not perform the way its label suggests. Our post on how much insulation you really need explains where that trade-off sits.
If you do not qualify
Plenty of households sit above the income line and still have an attic that has never been insulated. Two things are worth knowing.
First, the federal tax credit route is gone. The 25C energy efficient home improvement credit is terminated for property placed in service after 31 December 2025, so any page promising 30 percent back on insulation is out of date. Do not plan around it.
Second, the highest return step is almost always finding out where the house is actually losing energy before buying anything. That is what an energy audit and a blower door test do. From there, attic insulation can be aimed at the parts of the ceiling plane that are costing you, and the cost of insulating a house becomes a scoped number instead of a guess.
