Building Codes

In August 2021, the California Energy Commission approved a resolution adopting the 2022 Energy Code, commonly known as Title 24. The 2022 Energy Code went into effect on January 1, 2023, following approval by the California Building Standards Commission. NGA’s advocacy team has been providing feedback on proposed changes to the teams developing the Title 24 update over the last two years. Overall, the new version of Title 24 will make significant advancement towards the state’s energy efficiency and climate change goals while also meeting their cost effectiveness requirements.

This includes new provisions that will push towards electrification and decarbonization, including a new prescriptive requirement for PV and battery storage systems on both new nonresidential and multifamily buildings. For the fenestration requirements in nonresidential buildings, there are no changes to the window area limits and only small updates to the curtain wall and fixed window U and SHGC. On the residential side, there are no changes to the window requirements in single family homes since they were just updated last cycle, but there will be a brand new separate standard covering multifamily buildings of all heights. To address the product differences in 1 story to 50+ story multifamily buildings, it lists separate fenestration requirements for curtain wall / storefront, AW class windows, and all other windows.

The pandemic has brought about a lot of changes to the way we occupy our existing building stock. Rehabilitating existing buildings to meet these new demands requires flexibility in the Existing Building Codes. Currently, California’s Existing Building Code has only one path for building rehabilitation: prescriptive path. The American Institute of Architects has called for California to adopt the three different compliance paths--prescriptive, work area and performance--that are now incorporated into the International Existing Building Code. Doing so would undoubtedly provide greater flexibility in the design and rehabilitation of California’s existing building stock. 

NGA’s Energy Code Consultant, Dr. Tom Culp, Birch Point Consulting, Co-Vice Chair ASHRAE Std. 90.1, presented at the virtual Fall 2020 DOE Building Energy Codes Program in the panel discussion “Looking to the Future - What's in Store for ASHRAE Standard 90.1.” Tom’s presentation focused on the onsite renewable energy requirements in 2022 ASHRAE 90.1. Other topics covered in this session are thermal bridging, envelope back-stop and HVAC metrics. Watch a recording of the session. See the full program and download presentation slides at energycodes.gov. 

The International Code Council (ICC) is considering changes to the code development process based on issues presented to the Board Committee on the Long-Term Code Development Process (Blue Ribbon Committee). The board has approved two updates so far- cost impact and assembly consideration. NGA submitted public comments to the ICC Board in support of a proposal to use ANSI Consensus Procedures for future development of IECC. Read the comments. 

ICC Group B Hearings 

Group B

• Admin (Chapter 1 of all the I-codes except the IECC, IgCC and IRC) 
• IBC Structural provisions in Chapters 15 – 25 and IEBC structural provisions 
• IEBC non-structural provisions 
• IgCC Chapter 1 
• IRC Building provisions Chapters 1-10  

NGA Code Consultants Thom Zaremba and Nick Resetar of Roetzel & Andress and Tom Culp of Birchpoint Consulting represent NGA and the Glazing Industry Code Committee (GICC) at the ICC hearings, advocating on behalf of the glass industry. Read a summary of code changes relevant to glass and glazing. 

ICC 2024 – 2026 Building Code Development Cycle 

[May 2023] The International Code Council (ICC) will publish the 2024 I-Codes in late 2023 or early 2024. Looking ahead to the next edition, ICC published the schedule for the 2024-2026 Code Development Cycle. Upcoming dates of note are: 

• June 1, 2023: Deadline to apply to join code development committees. 
• October 16, 2023-January 8, 2024: Code change submittal period for Group A Codes. Group A includes the Fire Code, the Building Code’s fire safety and egress provisions and the Wildfire-Urban Interface Code. See the full schedule. 

The Code Hearings schedule is: 

• 2024 Committee Action Hearings – Group A #1 - April 7–16, 2024 in Orlando, FL 
• 2024 Annual Conference October 20–23, 2024, Expo October 20–21, 2024 and Committee Action Hearings –- Group A #2 October 23–31, 2024 in Long Beach, CA 
• 2025 Committee Action Hearings – Group B #1 - April 27 – May 6, 2025 in Orlando, FL 

Key to Abbreviations used in the Model Building Codes:

• CAH Committee Action Hearing
• GICC Glazing Industry Code Committee (within NGA)
• IBC International Building Code
• ICC International Code Committee
• IEBC International Existing Building Code
• IECC International Energy Conservation Code
• IgCC International Green Construction Code
• IRC International Residential Code
• Group A & Group B the ICC divided the model building codes into 2 parts for the purposes of reviewing code provisions. 
• PCH Public comment hearing
• OGCV Online Governmental Consensus Vote

Learn more about the codes in NGA’s Guide to the Glass and Glazing Requirements of the Model Building Codes.

2024 IECC Update

The IECC residential and commercial consensus committees wrapped up their review of the 2024 IECC in late March 2024. NGA was well-represented by Tom Culp, energy code consultant, who holds a voting position on the commercial consensus committee – the only one in the fenestration industry – and also chairs the commercial envelope subcommittee.

The residential committee strongly approved a GICC proposal to update residential fenestration requirements that was modified in a consensus proposal together with WDMA, FGIA, the New Buildings Institute, and 2050 Partners.

The commercial committee approved new default U-factors for different spandrel assemblies, incentives for higher performance fenestration under expanded new “additional energy efficiency credits” requirements, tighter air leakage requirements, new requirements for on-site renewable energy including BIPV, and new thermal bridging requirements similar to ASHRAE 90.1.

The committee rejected proposed envelope backstops that would restrict design flexibility, separate fenestration U-factors for midrise and high-rise residential occupancies, and a proposal that would have allowed NFRC ratings at actual project sizes to be used in the performance path. 

The consensus committees finished their work in Fall 2023, and approved a draft code that included several energy-efficiency improvements expected to advance the code by about 10%. This included marginal improvements in commercial and residential fenestration U-factor, as well as credits that incentivize high performance windows, increased daylight area, automated shading, and solar photovoltaics (PV) and building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). 

On top of these improvements, it also tackled many brand-new areas with a strong push on decarbonization and electrification related to heat pumps, solar-ready infrastructure, EV charging stations, demand response, onsite and off-site renewable energy (including PV and BIPV).  However, appeals from the gas industry, furnace manufacturers, multifamily builders, and northeast building officials challenged these new areas as being out of scope and going too far. Both ICC staff and an ICC appeals panel recommended rejecting all appeals, but the ICC Board agreed with several aspects of the appeals, and voted to move most of these new electrification issues to nonmandatory appendices that would not be part of the main code but could optionally be considered by jurisdictions. 

Importantly, however, they did not include the commercial on-site renewable energy provisions in their decision, which will remain in the main code. 

Culp said, “while I am personally disappointed that the board went against the strong consensus from the committees, appeals are a valid part of the process, and the board does have the final say. It is a missed opportunity to really move the code forward, but in the end, our industry is not directly affected by this controversial decision. We are happy with the other advancements made in both the residential and commercial energy codes, and I am pleased they did not weaken the on-site renewable energy provisions, which strongly support glass used in solar PV and BIPV.”  

The final 2024 IECC will be published later this spring, and then the process will start again for the 2027 IECC.