Title 24 is the California Building Standards Code.   According to the California Building Standards Commission's website it is a compilation of three different types of building criteria from three different sources which include the following:

• Building standards that have been adopted by state agencies without change from building standards contained in national model codes;
• Building standards that have been adopted and adapted from the national model code standards to meet California conditions; and
• Building standards, authorized by the California legislature, that constitute extensive additions not covered by the model codes that have been adopted to address particular California concerns

Title 24 applies basically to all occupancies in California except for modifications adopted by state agencies and local governing bodies.  Thus all builders, contractors and architects need to be familiar with Title 24 to ensure that any kind of work or addition to a building is done in accordance with California's Building Code.

San Francisco's ordinances require energy audits of commercial buildings 10,000 sq ft or greater.  If you are in the initial group of commercial buildings (approximately 1/3 of the building stock) with the November 15th deadline you need to make arrangements for an audit now.  It takes time to schedule an audit as you have to arrange with your property managers and tenants to allow full access to your building.  Also as there are so many buildings currently out of compliance it is going to prove harder and harder to find a qualified auditor/engineer who has time in their busy schedule to go through your property. 

The time to schedule an audit is now if you are in the first group.  You have only a month left to get your audit completed and filed with the Department of the Environment.  For more information about San Francisco's ordinance requirements check the compliance section of our website under San Francisco's “Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance Ordinance” 17-11.

If you are a commercial property owner Energy Benchmarking is going to be something you are going to have to become familiar with.  Energy Benchmarking consists of gathering information on your building, such as your buildings square footage, what and how the tenant spaces are used in your building, your utility bills, the utility bills of your tenants, general information about heating and air conditioning use by your tenants, the number of computers used in your building, the number of employees your tenants have, and the operational hours of your tenants.  All of this information is then put into benchmarking software such as Energy Star's Portfolio Manager or EnergyIQ. 

Once all of this information is put into the Benchmarking software it provides a ranking and compares your building's performance with similar buildings located in similar climates.  This allow you and your tenants to get a better understanding of how energy efficient your building is, and hopefully provides you with information or thoughts on how to improve the energy efficiency in your building. 

Both the state of California and the City of San Francisco are requiring commercial buildings of 5,000 sq ft or greater and respectively 10,000 sq ft or greater be benchmarked if they seek financing, lease or sell their property to prospective buyers.   Thus Energy Benchmarking is now going to become an important part of real estate transactions going forward.