As residential developers and builders in California gear up to meet this year’s increased demand for housing, new changes in the state’s energy code will shape their decisions and impact the industry’s roofing trends for 2014 and the foreseeable future.

Revisions to the California Building Code, Title 24, Part 6, were implemented in January as part of the state’s initiative to achieve net zero energy in residential construction by 2020. At the heart of these changes is the goal of reducing energy consumption by minimizing heat transfer through the building envelope. As such, the prior regulations underwent careful evaluation, including a closer look at the standards pertaining to residential roofs. Since the roof receives a substantial amount of direct radiation from the sun, it is obviously a critical component of the building envelope when it comes to preventing heat entering the home. To that end, a major revision of the energy code involves new prescriptive cool roof requirements in select climate zones for low-rise residential steep-slope roofs. The change has resulted in a sizable increase in the aged Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) for all roofing materials — from 10 to 16 or greater.