What Is the Title 24 Compliance Process?

I start with the permit application date, jurisdiction, occupancy, project type, and exact work being permitted. California updates the Energy Code on a three-year cycle. The 2022 standards apply to permit applications filed on or after January 1, 2023, while the 2025 standards apply on or after January 1, 2026. New construction, additions, alterations, and changes of use can trigger different provisions, so the scope has to be mapped before calculations begin.

• Confirm the permit application date and enforcing agency
• Identify new, addition, alteration, and change-of-use work
• Separate residential and nonresidential compliance obligations
• Record assumptions that require owner, architect, contractor, or AHJ confirmation

The design team selects the allowed prescriptive or performance approach and coordinates envelope, lighting, mechanical, service-water-heating, controls, and covered-process inputs. Performance work uses approved compliance software; CBECC-Res and CBECC-Com are California's public reference programs for their respective building types. Design certificates—such as residential CF1R or nonresidential NRCC documents—must agree with the drawings, schedules, specifications, and modeled assemblies submitted for permit.

• Model the actual geometry, assemblies, systems, controls, schedules, and efficiencies
• Use the correct approved software version for the applicable code cycle
• Place required compliance information in the permit set
• Check that forms, calculations, plans, and specifications describe the same design

The enforcing agency reviews the submitted package and may issue comments about inputs, mandatory measures, signatures, registration, or coordination. After permit, installers document completed work. Residential projects commonly use CF2R installation certificates and applicable CF3R field-verification certificates completed by certified HERS raters. Nonresidential projects use applicable NRCI installation, NRCV verification, and NRCA acceptance documents. The required records depend on the measures in the approved design.

• Answer each plan-check comment against the coordinated design record
• Revise calculations and every affected drawing or form together
• Assign installation certificates to the responsible installing parties
• Schedule HERS verification or acceptance testing before work becomes inaccessible

A permit model is not the end of compliance. Substituted equipment, changed glazing, revised lighting controls, altered ductwork, or missing tests can separate construction from the approved basis. I recommend maintaining a live compliance matrix from design through closeout. The responsible professionals, installers, HERS raters, acceptance-test technicians, and enforcement agency each have distinct roles; one signature does not replace another party's required record.

• Recheck substitutions against the approved model and mandatory measures
• Preserve registered certificates and accepted revisions
• Resolve failed verification or acceptance tests before closeout
• Confirm the final certificate set matches installed conditions