How much does Title 24 documentation cost?
Title 24, Part 6 documentation is priced as part of the energy compliance scope, and for most commercial projects it is a modest line item compared to the cost of getting it wrong. Standalone compliance modeling for a small tenant improvement is at the low end; a full performance-path model of a new commercial building costs more because the model is the design tool, not just a form. The fee depends on which compliance path the building takes and how settled the design is when the model is built.
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Prescriptive paperwork vs performance modeling
The prescriptive path is documentation work: the applicable Certificates of Compliance completed from the design's actual component values, checked against the climate zone's tables. It prices low because the inputs are the drawings themselves. The performance path is modeling work: the building is built in approved software like CBECC, run against the standard design, and iterated until the energy budget passes. That model has to be maintained as the design changes, which is where the hours go. Buildings that need design freedom — lots of glass, mixed systems, unusual schedules — need the performance path, and its fee buys that freedom.
What moves the price
Building size matters less than building complexity. A big simple warehouse models faster than a small mixed-use building with three occupancy types and two HVAC system families. The second driver is design stability: every material change to the envelope, lighting, or mechanical systems after the model is built reopens it. The third is the jurisdiction's documentation expectations — some plan checkers want the full report set in the plans, others accept summaries with the model available on request. A quote should say which forms and reports are included and how many model revisions the fee carries.
The cost nobody budgets: the correction cycle
Title 24 corrections are among the most common on California commercial submittals, and they are rarely about deep energy questions. They are mismatches: the lighting fixture schedule drifted from the modeled lighting power, the economizer in the model was value-engineered out of the mechanical set, the window schedule's U-factors no longer match the compliance run. Each mismatch costs a full correction round-trip. Documentation produced from the same source data as the MEP design — same schedules, same equipment — removes most of these before a reviewer can find them. That integration is worth more than the modeling fee itself.
What Torch delivers
Torch builds the Title 24 documentation with the MEP design, not after it. We confirm the climate zone and code edition, choose the compliance path that fits the building, run the model alongside the mechanical and electrical design, and issue a permit set where the compliance certificates, the equipment schedules, and the drawings agree — sealed by licensed PEs backed by Apex Grid Engineering. If energy corrections come back, the team that built the model answers them. Send the set and we will scope the documentation with the design, as one fee.
The bottom line
Title 24 documentation costs the least when it is modeled once, from the same data as the MEP design, by the team that will answer the corrections. Price the path and the revision count, not just the forms.
Torch Engineering PLLC · (480) 490-0064 · info@torchengineering.com — PE stamping backed by Apex Grid Engineering.