If you have worked on a California residential project in the last twenty years, you have heard the phrase "HERS rater" used as shorthand for the person who comes out to verify duct leakage, refrigerant charge, or quality insulation installation. HERS stood for Home Energy Rating System, a program administered under Title 20 that grew up alongside Title 24 to handle the field-verification side of energy compliance.
As of January 1, 2026, HERS is no longer called HERS. The California Energy Commission has renamed the program ECC, the Energy Code Compliance program, and moved its regulatory home from Title 20 into Title 24 itself.
If you are a homeowner, an architect, or a builder, you are probably going to read that sentence and wonder what you are supposed to do about it. The short answer is: almost nothing. But the acronym on your CF1R has changed, and it is worth understanding why.
Why the rename happened
HERS was always a slightly awkward fit. The name implies a rating, a score, and homeowners frequently confused it with a real-estate energy disclosure. In practice, the program is a compliance and verification program: it trains the field technicians and registers the paperwork that proves a house was actually built the way the energy model said it would be built.
Moving the program under Title 24 and renaming it "Energy Code Compliance" does two things. It lines up the regulatory language with what the program actually does, and it collapses the conceptual distance between the design compliance document (the CF1R) and the installation and verification documents (the CF2R and CF3R). All three now live inside the same part of the code.
The registry providers (CHEERS, CalCERTS, Energy Docs) continue to operate exactly as before. Your raters, if you work with them directly, are still the same people. They just have a new program name on their badges.
What changes on paper
The visible change happens on the compliance forms. Anywhere the old form said HERS, the new form says ECC. A few specific callouts:
- CF1R forms generated in EnergyPro 2025 now reference "ECC-verified measures" where they previously said "HERS-verified measures."
- Registry stamps show the ECC logo. CHEERS-registered documents still come from CHEERS; the registry name did not change, only the program it operates under.
- Plan-check comments from building departments are catching up. Some reviewers are still writing "HERS" in their correction letters because the training material hasn't all been updated. If that happens on your project, it's not a problem. Treat it as the same thing.
On the CF1R itself, the box that used to list HERS measures for the rater to verify is identical in content. Duct leakage testing, refrigerant charge verification, quality insulation installation, indoor air quality fans, and high-efficiency envelope measures are all still called out the same way. The label above the box just reads differently.
What does not change
Existing HERS raters are grandfathered into ECC automatically. There is no new certification, no new fee for the rater, no transition course. The continuing education cycle remains the same.
The scope of field verification also does not change. If your design triggered QII verification under the 2022 code, it triggers QII verification under the 2025 code. If your ducts are in unconditioned space, they still get tested. If you have a ducted heat pump, it still gets a refrigerant charge verification. The triggers are identical; only the document header is different.
Registration fees, which vary by registry, also did not change as part of the rename. If your CF1R costs the same registry fee it cost in November 2025, it costs the same fee in February 2026.
What to actually tell people
For homeowners, the line is simple: "California renamed one of the energy compliance programs. It does not affect what gets installed, what gets tested, or what it costs." That is the whole story.
For architects and designers, the line is slightly more technical: "HERS became ECC on January 1, 2026. It is a rename, not a regulation change. The verifier on our projects is still the same company. The CF1R looks the same with different labels."
For plan-check, the answer is: submit under whichever program name the reviewer asks about. They're the same program. If a reviewer insists that HERS verification is required on a 2026 submission, you can cite Title 24, Part 6 (the program now lives inside Part 6) and the correction resolves itself.
The one place it does matter
The rename is a small administrative change, but it signals something larger. Folding the verification program into Title 24 makes it easier for the CEC to tighten the relationship between design compliance and field compliance in future code cycles.
Translation: expect the 2028 code to treat field verification and design compliance as one continuous paperwork trail, rather than two overlapping ones. More measures will likely require field verification than require it today. The ECC name makes that easier to write.
For now, though, you have a CF1R that says ECC on it where it used to say HERS. Everything else is the same. Carry on.