Burlington’s Struggle to Weatherize Rentals
In 2021, Burlington, VT made history as one of the first cities to mandate rental weatherization.
Today, the program is in unbelievable backlog, and the urgency to weatherize is higher than ever.
Photo by Michelle Maria
In 2019, Burlington, Vermont adopted the “Net Zero Energy Roadmap,” a plan to eliminate emissions from all buildings and ground transportation citywide by 2030. According to the Roadmap, this ambitious goal can only be met with a suite of new policies, including greater regulation of buildings. In a city where about 60% of residents do not own their homes, policy regulating energy use in rental housing was immediately identified as an important piece of the puzzle.
Weatherization, which consists of air sealing, insulation, and ventilation, plays a central role in reducing energy consumption. In 2021, Burlington became the second city in the country to mandate the weatherization of rental units. Yet still, due to a shortage of weatherization contractors and a number of other issues, Burlington has fallen wildly behind on its rental weatherization goals.
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Weatherization may seem less glamorous than some state-of-the-art technologies available to lower emissions and build climate resilience, but it’s proven to be one of the most important steps to reducing home energy consumption. If you add up all the cracks, gaps, and openings in the average home, the heat leaving and entering the home could be the equivalent of leaving a window open year-round. Weatherization is emphasized in climate action plans across the country, but is especially important in Vermont’s colder climate; the state climate action plan calls for weatherizing 120,000 total homes by 2030.
Yet weatherization is costly, and in Vermont, about 75% of renting households fall below the state’s median income. Regardless of income, weatherization often requires structural changes that cannot be made without the consent of a property owner. Since tenants are typically the ones paying utility bills and reaping other benefits of weatherization, landlords have little incentive to weatherize their properties. As a result, rental properties fall behind in efficiency and safety, and the consequences fall on renters themselves, in the form of higher energy costs, unpredictable temperatures, and even health hazards.
Burlington has unique characteristics that amplify these challenges. The city has an old housing stock and rental properties are, on average, 10 years older than owner-occupied housing. Combined with Burlington’s severe housing shortage, this means that many renters feel they have no choice but to live in an un-weatherized home.
““It kind of sucks because you have to get what you can take since the housing market is so scarce. Ideally, I would like to have an apartment that’s properly insulated and not have to worry about this stuff. But that’s just not the case,” said a Burlington renter who asked to remain anonymous. ”
To address these issues, Burlington City Council passed an ordinance – championed by then-City Councilor and now Run On Climate Executive Director Jack Hanson – requiring owners of inefficient rental properties to conduct an energy audit and then weatherize their properties.
The ordinance sets four stages of implementation. The first stage required the least efficient buildings (those using greater than 90,000 BTUs per square foot) to be weatherized by 2022, and the final stage requires all buildings over 50,000 BTUs per square foot to be weatherized by 2025. For context, the average energy efficiency of newer homes in the U.S. typically ranges from 30,000 to 50,000 BTUs per square foot. This system was implemented to triage buildings by urgency, knowing that weatherization contractors wouldn’t be able to manage a high volume of homes at once.
Yet still, in 2024, the program is in unimaginable backlog. Of the 342 properties currently required to comply with the ordinance, only 6 have been weatherized. The problem is not that property owners don’t want to weatherize, in fact, only 9 properties have received fines for failing to schedule an energy audit. The problem is that of the hundreds of properties that have scheduled an energy audit, most are still waiting in a long line for a contractor.
Burlington Director of Permitting and Inspections Bill Ward admitted that the effort is going “incredibly slow,” and pointed to an overburdened weatherization workforce as the main challenge.
The strain on the weatherization workforce is a serious obstacle: there are currently about 770 Vermonters working in weatherization contracting, a number that needs to grow to 6,200 by 2030 in order for the state to meet the goals of its Climate Action Plan (CAP). The urgency isn’t just driven by the climate crisis — tenants are caught in limbo, being forced to suffer cold winters with high heating bills. Many lower-income tenants have been forced to move out of Burlington due to the high cost of living. As renters wait for their homes to be weatherized, Burlington is working to strengthen the weatherization workforce and find other ways to speed up the adoption of the ordinance.
There are currently about 770 Vermonters working in weatherization contracting, a number that needs to grow to 6,200 by 2030 in order for the state to meet its own climate goals.
During its June 3 meeting, the city council passed a resolution asking the city’s Transportation Energy and Utilities Commission (TEUC) to review the current rental weatherization process, and make recommendations to improve its efficiency. The report must be provided by October 1st of this year.
According to Burlington City Councilor Carter Neubieser, investing directly in the weatherization workforce is the best way to expedite the weatherization process going forward:
““The good news is that this work is relatively cost-effective and efficient from a taxpayer dollar perspective. And it’s going to pay back into city and state coffers over time and more and more, pay for itself,” he said.”
Previous weatherization workforce programs have cost the city roughly $4,000 per trainee. Burlington recently received a Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant of $1.5 million, which it intends to allocate to a weatherization workforce program. If training costs remain similar, the city could train about 400 new weatherization contractors using the grant.
It isn’t all that simple, though; the challenges of recruiting weatherization contractors extend beyond funding. At a July 22 TEUC meeting, attendees emphasized that workers choosing between a career in weatherization or as an electrician, HVAC technician, or energy auditor, often choose the latter options, which pay similarly or more, and have more comfortable conditions (weatherization work is often in cramped and very hot or cold attic and basement spaces).
Overshadowing the struggles to address these challenges is an even more immediate worry. If former President Trump returns to the White House in January, Neubieser and other progressive policymakers are concerned that grants like the RAISE grant for weatherization and workforce development will be cut. If federal funds are cut, the road to 6,200 weatherization contractors and complete weatherization of Burlington’s rental properties could be drawn out even more.
““We need to recognize that we may not have the same level of federal funds available to us that we’ve had over the last few years… If that is the case, this might be the last workforce development money we see to this extent, through a federal grant… so this is a really, really important window that we’re sitting in right now, that we need to take full advantage of,” said Neubieser. ”
Weatherization is one of the most direct and effective tools to fighting the climate crisis. The benefits of weatherization extend beyond environmental concerns; it’s about alleviating financial burdens on renters and ensuring that all renters have access to safe, healthy, and dignified living conditions, and it’s about creating good-paying, sustainable jobs, and giving working people a role in the green economy.
Inaction is not an option. The longer rental weatherization is delayed in Burlington, the more economic and environmental challenges will continue to be exacerbated. Weatherizing rental properties is a win on all fronts, and it’s a step that cannot afford to wait.
