This 'manual documents the rules used for modeling residential buildings for performance compliance under California’s 2013 Building Energy Efficiency Standards for Low-Rise Residential Buildings, similar to the Alternative Calculation Methods (ACM) used in the past to document software rules. This document explains how the standard design (energy budget) is established for a given building.
The 2013 Compliance Manager is the simulation and compliance rule implementation software specified by the Energy Commission. Beginning with the 2013 standards, compliance software requires greater modeling detail for buildings than previous compliance software programs. For example, attics, crawl spaces, basements, and attached unconditioned spaces (garages and storage) are defined in the building modeling software.
Documentation of detailed calculation algorithms is contained in the companion volume:
California Residential Alternative Calculation Method - Algorithms
This document is designed to establish the process of creating a building model. Each section describes how the proposed design (energy use) is defined, how the standard design (energy budget) is established, and ending with what is reported on the Certificate of Compliance (CF1R).
This Reference 'Manual documents the compliance analysis modeling rules for all aspects of the Energy Commission’s ACM Reference Method. This document DOES NOT specify the minimum capabilities of vendor-supplied software. The Energy Commission reserves the right to approve vendor software for limited implementations of what is documented in this 'manual.