What Is the Energy Code Compliance (ECC) Program?

It is the programme that took over Title 24 field verification and diagnostic testing from the HERS Program on 1 January 2026. The tests did not change. The providers, the raters and the registries were renamed, and the rules moved into the Energy Code itself.

What actually changed

The ECC Program replaces the field verification and diagnostic testing provisions that used to sit inside the HERS Program. Three things follow from that:

HERS Providers are recognised as ECC-Providers. The same organisations, operating the same data registries.
HERS raters are recognised as ECC-Raters. The same people doing the same tests.
The rules moved. The testing provisions now live in the Energy Code — Title 24 Part 6 and its associated administrative regulations in Part 1 — rather than in a separate HERS regulation.

The tests themselves are untouched. Duct leakage, refrigerant charge, airflow, QII: same procedures, same thresholds, same registration mechanism.

What HERS still is

The HERS Program has not been abolished. It continues with a narrower scope: whole-house ratings and home energy audits. What it no longer does is demonstrate Title 24 compliance.

That is the substantive point behind an otherwise administrative change. HERS is now a rating and audit programme; code compliance verification is ECC. They are separate activities that used to share a name.

Why the split makes sense

Code compliance testing is tied to the Energy Code, which is revised on a three-year cycle. Housing it in a separate programme with its own regulations meant two sets of rules moving on two timetables. Putting the provisions in the Energy Code aligns the testing requirements with the code they enforce — and it took effect on the same date as the 2025 Energy Code, which is not a coincidence.

What you actually have to do differently

Practically, very little. If your project needed field verification before, it needs it now. The person you engage holds the same qualification. The registry works the same way. The certificate families are unchanged.

What changes is the vocabulary — and therefore what you should expect to see on current documents. A 2026 project's paperwork refers to ECC, and a contractor or consultant still talking exclusively about HERS registration is describing the arrangement by its former name.

How to read older material

A great deal of Title 24 guidance on the web predates the change and describes code compliance as a HERS activity. That material is not necessarily wrong about the tests — those did not change — but it is out of date about the programme, the job titles and the registries.

The same caution applies to any page still listing CalCERTS as a current registry, which closed in August 2024. Both are useful tells for how recently a source was reviewed.