The California Energy Commission adopted changes to the Building Energy Efficiency Standards contained in the California Code of Regulations (CCR), Title 24, Part 6 (also known as the California Energy Code) and associated
administrative regulations in Part I of the 2005 standards. The Commission adopted the new standards at a hearing for 15-day language on April 23, 2008. The amended standards will go into effect in August 2009.

Several sections of the document outline the prescriptive requirements for several roofing categories, organized by construction type, occupancy type, slope, and roofing product density. Some new additions in this draft version of Title 24 include cool roof prescriptive requirements for steep slope and residential roofs, use of 3-year aged solar reflectance data, and requirements by climate zone. (Please see reverse side of this document for a table summarizing the cool roof prescriptive requirements). Also, many of the minimum requirements allow a Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) calculation in lieu of individual solar reflectance and thermal emittance values. The minimum SRI values are calculated using a thermal emittance value of 0.85. Note that there are exceptions to many of these requirements; please see the CEC document for details on these exceptions.

Section 10-113 establishes rules for implementing labeling and certification requirements relating to reflectance and emittance for roofing products. It designates the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC) as the supervisory entity for radiative properties of roofing materials; no substantive changes have been made to this section. Section 118 explains that roofing products must be certified and labeled, and if not, will assume default ratings for aged reflectance and emittance values. The current document also provides a calculation to determine Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) values.

The official document “2008 Building Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings- 15 Day Language,” can be found at: www.energy.ca.gov/title24/2008standards/rulemaking/documents/index.html

Contact the CEC by phone: (800) 772-3300 or email: title24@energy.state.ca.us

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