Title 24 reports for Menlo Park permits.
Menlo Park is the rare city whose energy reach code fires on construction cost rather than square footage. Cross $100,000 on a house built before 2011 and you owe two extra energy measures — and the $100,000 moves up every January 1 whether the council meets or not.
A dollar trigger that moves every January
Menlo Park’s reach code is codified and CEC-approved for the 2025 code: Ordinance 1127, adopted 11/4/2025, Energy Commission approval 4/27/2026, codified at MPMC Chapters 12.16 and 12.18, current through 06-09-2026. It sits on the approved list twice, and the older listing is a trap: Ordinance 1124 was approved against the 2022 Energy Code on 11/12/2025, eight days after 1127 repealed 1124’s sections. A separate 2022-cycle PV reach code, Ordinance 1093, was approved 4/12/2023 for multifamily, hotel and nonresidential.
MPMC 12.16.020 catches an alteration to a single-family building originally constructed before 2011 at a stated project valuation of $100,000 or more; 12.16.010 runs the same test on an addition. The obligation: two items off the nine-measure Flex-Path menu — R-49 attic plus air sealing, duct sealing, R-13 walls, R-19 raised floor, pipe and tank insulation, 45 lumens-per-watt lamps, gas furnace to heat pump, gas water heater to heat pump water heater, or a Home Energy Score recommendation — documented in the plan set at application, field-verified by the City Building Inspector during construction. The $100,000 adjusts each January 1 against the California Construction Cost Index. A Home Energy Score of 7 or better within five years exempts the project. Separately, MPMC 12.18.110 makes a replaced or upgraded air conditioning condensing unit come back as a heat pump, naming no climate zone in the section — Menlo Park is Climate Zone 3, and no neighbor’s zone-4 language appears. The off-ramp on that change-out is a 20 percent cost differential, on the city’s AC to HP Unreasonable Hardship Form.
One thing that doesn’t change by city: my price and turnaround are flat statewide — $99 first report, $150 flat after, 24–48 hours on your first job. What differs city to city is what happens on the plan-check side before and after the CF1R lands in your permit set, which is what this page covers.
Prices
Flat fees, in writing before I start. No hourly, no bid package, no change-order games — the number on the quote is the number on the invoice.
One honest note
I’m not a licensed engineer or architect, and I don’t stamp drawings. On the CF1R I’m the documentation author — you stay the responsible designer. Nothing about your role on the job changes.
That’s on purpose. I’m not after your scope or your clients. I do one piece of the permit set — the piece that usually holds it up — and I do it fast.
Menlo Park plan-check questions
If yours isn’t here, see the full FAQ or call and ask.
Which two measures does the $100,000 threshold buy me?
How does Menlo Park take a submittal, and how fast?
What do you need from me to start?
A PDF of the architecturals and the project address. Floor plans, elevations and a window schedule is plenty.
You don’t need the HVAC or water heater picked. If the plans don’t call them out, I model what I’d normally specify for that job — and I list every assumption in the email so nothing is buried. Swap any of it and I rerun; that doesn’t count against your free revisions.
The design doesn’t have to be finished either. Early is often better, because that’s when a compliance problem is still cheap to fix.
Does my ADU or addition actually need one?
Almost certainly. New conditioned floor area — ADUs, JADUs, garage conversions, additions — triggers Title 24. So do alterations that touch the envelope, the ductwork, or the HVAC equipment, including a straight change-out. A remodel that only moves non-structural interior partitions usually doesn’t.
Send it either way. If it doesn’t need a report I’ll say so and there’s no charge for the look.
Send your Menlo Park plans.
Put the stated project valuation in the notes — that number, against the house’s original construction year, decides whether two Flex-Path measures have to be picked and drawn into the set alongside the Title 24 Energy Code Calculations sheet.