You don't choose Title 24. You choose how much it costs you.

Every other certification on this site is a choice. Title 24 isn't. California's Building Energy Efficiency Standards, Part 6 of the California Code of Regulations, are mandatory for every new construction, addition, and major renovation project in the state. There's no version of "should we pursue Title 24." The only real question is which compliance path you take, and by how much margin you clear it, and both of those are decisions that get more expensive the later you make them.

Sixteen zones, sixteen different budgets

Title 24 sets its energy budget by climate zone, and California has 16 of them. A design that clears code comfortably in one zone can fail outright in another, which means a statewide average number is close to useless for a specific project. Buildwiser runs your design against the actual budget for your site's climate zone, not a rounded statewide estimate.

Prescriptive or performance: pick the one that's actually cheaper

The prescriptive path is a fixed checklist: every system individually has to pass. The performance path models your whole building's energy budget together, letting a strength in one system offset a weakness in another: often cheaper, but it requires the full energy model that a prescriptive checklist doesn't. Buildwiser runs both against your design and tells you which one actually wins, instead of defaulting to whichever path your consultant is more comfortable modeling.

Solar and storage aren't an above-code extra anymore

The 2025 Energy Code updates requirements for buildings with photovoltaic systems to pair them with battery energy storage, with CEC-specified sizing rules aimed at enabling onsite use of clean energy while limiting grid export. For a California project, solar and battery sizing isn't a separate decision from Title 24 compliance anymore: it's part of how the 2025 code itself gets scored, and getting the pairing right affects both your compliance margin and your actual construction budget.

Catch the fail before plan check does

Illustrative modeling suggests projects that model compliance after entitlement spend $40K+ more on redesign, on average, than projects that model it before the unit mix locks. Title 24 also updates roughly every three years: which code cycle applies depends on your actual permit date, not your design start date, and getting that wrong is its own way to fail a review that should have passed.

• Climate-zone-specific energy budget, not a statewide estimate
• Both compliance paths modeled, so you know which one is actually cheaper
• Correct code cycle matched automatically to your permit date
• Re-run instantly on any design change, before it reaches plan check