The California Energy Commission has released the Proposed Standards for Residential and Non-Residential Building standards. Included in the standards are a number of measures that will require HERS verifications. CHEERS would like to hear from you.

As an example in the standards is the HERS provider notification requirement by the document author (Analyst or Title 24 consultant). This element was added in the standards after it became clear of the importance of title-24 consultants in impacting energy efficiency in housing. This provision will impact CHEERS Raters since the notification will potentially increase the need for verifications.

There are a number of other provisions in the proposed standards that will require additional training, education, and process enhancements.

Please take the time to review the proposed standards since there are a number of enhancements in the standards which will provide significant opportunities for those of you working in the energy efficiency housing market.

CHEERS will be responding to the proposed standards. Our comments will support many of the proposed changes and will address how we may implement many of the changes. It is important that we hear from you on any of the specific items mentioned in the proposed standards so that we may incorporate them into our response. Comments are due in early September.

We are here to help communities build better energy efficient homes and the proposed standards go a long way to doing that.

If you are interested in reading the exact verbiage it can be found at the below link.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2005_standards/rulemaking/documents/index.html

The following documents are available for review. They are:

2005 Standards for Residential and Non-Residential Buildings

Joint Appendices

Residential ACM Manual

Nonresidential ACM Manual

Also, there will be a public hearing before the Energy Commission on Thursday, September 4th at 10:00am. It will be held at the California Energy Commission.