## 1.1 Purpose

This 'manual documents the rules used for modeling residential buildings for performance compliance under California’s 2016 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 proposed design (energy use) and standard design (energy budget) are established for a given building.

The 2016 Compliance Manager is the simulation and compliance rule implementation software specified by the California Energy Commission. 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 Appendix E, 2016 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 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.