CalGreen Requirements for Ventura County Remodels, Additions, and ADUs (2026)

A homeowner in Camarillo pulls a permit for a single bathroom remodel. New tile, new vanity, new shower valve, new toilet. Demo goes fine. Then a plan check comment comes back asking about the guest bathroom down the hall, the one that isn't in the scope of work at all, with its original 1988 toilet still bolted to the floor. That's not an inspector padding the job. Depending on when the house was built, state law can require every noncompliant fixture in the entire home to be swapped out before the city signs off, not just the ones behind the wall you're opening.

We're a licensed general contractor, CA Lic. #1066117, with 20+ years pulling permits across Ventura County and a 5.0-star Google rating from 24 reviews. Here's what CalGreen actually is, what triggers it, and the plumbing fixture rule that catches more homeowners off guard than anything else on this list.

CalGreen Isn't the Energy Code. Here's the Actual Difference.

Title 24 is a big umbrella covering multiple building standards. Part 6 is the energy code: insulation, windows, HVAC efficiency, and solar PV sizing. Part 11 is CalGreen, the California Green Building Standards Code, and it covers a different set of concerns entirely: water efficiency, construction waste diversion, electric-vehicle infrastructure, and material standards like low-VOC paints and adhesives.

Both parts get reviewed at the same plan check and both are mandatory statewide. Both also got a new code cycle at the same time: the 2025 edition of Title 24 took effect for permits filed on or after January 1, 2026. But they're separate codes with separate triggers. A project can land squarely in Part 6 territory and barely touch Part 11, or the other way around. If your project involves new windows, HVAC changeouts, or insulation, our guide on Title 24 energy code triggers for Ventura County remodels covers that side. This one covers the CalGreen side: water, waste, EV wiring, and materials.

Want a cost ballpark while you sort out which code applies? SafewayQuickQuote.com gives you a free AI-powered estimate in about two minutes. It's a solid starting number for budgeting, but it won't tell you whether your scope crosses one of these code triggers. That's a conversation worth having with us directly, at (805) 222-6544, before you finalize a design.

What Actually Triggers CalGreen on an Existing Home

CalGreen's residential mandatory measures live in Chapter 4 of Part 11, and the applicability rule matters more than any single requirement inside it. Chapter 4 applies to additions or alterations of an existing home where the work increases the building's conditioned area, volume, or size, and only within the specific area being added or altered, not the whole house. Repairs, replacing what's already there without expanding anything, generally aren't pulled into Chapter 4 on their own.

In plain terms: build a 300-square-foot family room addition, and Chapter 4 applies to that new 300 square feet. Gut and rebuild a kitchen in the same footprint with no added square footage, and that trigger is generally narrower, though other CalGreen provisions and the plumbing fixture law below can still reach a project that never expands a home's footprint at all. Confirm this scope question with your specific city rather than assuming; Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Moorpark, Oxnard, Ventura, and the Ventura County RMA all administer the same state floor, but how a project gets scoped against it varies by counter.

The Plumbing Fixture Gotcha: A Different Law, Same Permit

This is the part of the story that opened this article, and it's the single most-missed requirement on a remodel that touches plumbing. It's worth being precise: this specific rule isn't CalGreen. It's California Civil Code Section 1101.4, a separate state law that shows up at the same permit counter and gets lumped in with “green building” requirements because it deals with the same subject matter.

Here's what it actually says. For any single-family home built on or before January 1, 1994, pulling a permit for an addition, alteration, or improvement requires replacing all noncompliant plumbing fixtures in the entire house, not just the ones inside your project's scope, as a condition of final permit approval and occupancy sign-off. “Noncompliant” generally means older, higher-flow toilets, showerheads, and faucets installed before water-conserving standards took hold. A homeowner planning a $30,000 kitchen remodel in a 1978 Simi Valley tract home can end up also swapping fixtures in two bathrooms that were never part of the plan or the budget.

Multifamily and commercial properties fall under a related section, Civil Code 1101.5: an addition increasing floor area by more than 10 percent requires replacing all noncompliant fixtures building-wide, while an alteration valued over $150,000 requires replacing fixtures only in the improved area. Property managers should budget for this separately from a single-family scope.

Before finalizing a budget on a pre-1994 home, ask your contractor or the permit counter whether Section 1101.4 applies, and get a real number for swapping every remaining fixture in the house, even the ones nowhere near your renovation.

Water-Efficient Fixtures Required in the New or Altered Work

Separate from the whole-house retrofit rule above, CalGreen itself sets flow-rate ceilings on any new or replaced fixture installed as part of the work. These apply regardless of your home's age, anywhere a fixture is being newly installed or swapped as part of the permitted scope:

• Toilets: effective flush volume can't exceed 1.28 gallons per flush, and tank-type units need to meet the EPA WaterSense specification for tank-type toilets.
• Showerheads: capped at 1.8 gallons per minute at 80 psi. If a shower has more than one showerhead on a single valve, the combined flow of every outlet running at once still can't exceed that 1.8 gpm ceiling.
• Bathroom faucets: capped at 1.2 gallons per minute.
• Kitchen faucets: capped at 1.8 gallons per minute.

Most fixtures sold at major retailers already meet these numbers, since manufacturers build to the statewide standard as a baseline. Where this bites is specialty or imported fixtures, rain-shower systems with multiple heads, or older stock a homeowner already bought before checking the spec sheet. Confirm flow rate before you buy, not after an inspector flags it.

CalGreen also sets maximum VOC content limits on paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants, and certain flooring installed in the altered area, tied to CARB and SCAQMD material tables. The limit depends on the product category, so ask your supplier for compliant product data sheets rather than assuming a product qualifies.

Construction Waste Diversion: The 65 Percent Floor

CalGreen requires qualifying construction, demolition, and renovation projects to divert at least 65 percent of debris from landfill disposal, through recycling, salvage, or reuse. This applies to qualifying new construction and to additions and alterations that increase a home's conditioned area, volume, or size, consistent with the Chapter 4 rule above.

The 65 percent number is the state-mandated minimum; it doesn't change city to city. What differs locally is the paperwork. The City of Ventura, for example, requires qualifying projects to submit a Waste Management Plan documenting how the project will hit that target, using a licensed hauler or documented salvage. Other Ventura County jurisdictions administer the same state floor through their own forms.

Practically, this means working with a debris hauler who can provide diversion documentation, rather than a straight landfill-bound dumpster, and keeping the receipts your contractor submits at closeout. A bill that just says “debris removal” with no diversion percentage doesn't satisfy the requirement on its own.

EV-Ready Wiring: Where It Applies, and Where ADUs Get an Exception

CalGreen's EV provisions expanded in the 2025 cycle, and the rule that trips people up most is the ADU exception, which runs opposite to what most homeowners expect.

For new one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses with an attached private garage, CalGreen requires a listed raceway, at least 1-inch trade size, running from the main service panel to a point near the future EV charger location. This is “EV-capable” wiring, not a full charger, just rough-in infrastructure that makes adding a charger later a wiring pull instead of a wall-opening project.

Here's the exception: on a lot where a primary home already exists and the new project is an ADU, CalGreen's EV-charging requirement generally doesn't apply to the ADU itself, because of the parking exemptions ADUs already get under state law. If the ADU doesn't add new parking, this requirement typically doesn't reach it. If it does add new parking spaces, the raceway requirement applies to those specific spaces.

Adding EV charging to the main house alongside an ADU or addition is often the point where an existing panel runs out of room. Our electrical panel upgrade cost guide covers when a 100-amp panel needs to become 200 amps, and our EV charger panel capacity guide walks through checking your panel first.

Solar PV and New ADUs: A Part 6 Issue, Not CalGreen, But One You'll Hear About in the Same Conversation

This deserves a callout because it's the most common source of confusion between the two codes. Solar PV sizing for new construction is a Title 24 Part 6 energy code requirement, not a CalGreen measure. It comes up in the same breath as CalGreen because both parts get reviewed together, and a new detached ADU is exactly the project type where both matter at once.

Under Part 6, a newly constructed, site-built detached ADU is generally required to include solar PV sized to a state formula based on conditioned floor area and climate zone. There's a real exemption: if the calculated PV size works out under roughly 1.8 kW, the ADU qualifies for a small-ADU exemption and no solar is required, a threshold that tends to land around ADUs under roughly 600 to 700 square feet depending on climate zone.

Several other scenarios are generally exempt entirely: garage conversions, attached ADUs, ADUs built within existing space, and factory-built ADUs on a foundation, regulated on a separate track from site-built new construction. Weighing a garage conversion against new detached construction? Our garage conversion ADU guide and Ventura County ADU cost guide cover the cost differences.

What the Building Department Actually Wants to See

Most jurisdictions require a completed CalGreen compliance checklist submitted alongside your plans, but the accepted format isn't uniform statewide. Some cities accept the standard HCD-published checklist, some require their own version, and some decline certain third-party formats outright. None of that changes what CalGreen requires; it changes what paperwork proves you're meeting it.

Simi Valley Building & Safety Division, (805) 583-6723, handles CalGreen and energy code review together as part of the full construction document set. Ventura County RMA Building and Safety Division, 800 S. Victoria Avenue in Ventura, (805) 654-2771, is the counter for unincorporated county projects; RMA also runs an East County office in Newbury Park. Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Oxnard, and the City of Ventura each administer the same statewide floor through their own Building Division counters, with their own checklist preferences. The requirements don't change city to city; the form does, and calling ahead beats a plan check resubmittal.

The Bottom Line

CalGreen and the energy code get treated as one thing by most homeowners, and they're not. Part 6 asks how efficiently your home uses energy. Part 11, CalGreen, asks about the water your fixtures use, where your demolition debris ends up, whether your wiring is EV-ready, and what's in your paint. Layered on top of both, for a large share of Ventura County's housing stock, is a plumbing fixture retrofit law that has nothing to do with CalGreen directly but shows up at the same counter and can add real, unbudgeted cost.

None of this is a reason to avoid a remodel, an addition, or an ADU. It's a reason to ask the right questions before you finalize a budget, not after a plan check comment forces the issue. Call us at (805) 222-6544 and we'll walk through what your project and your home's age actually trigger before you spend a dollar on fixtures or materials. Want a cost ballpark to start the conversation? SafewayQuickQuote.com gets you one in about two minutes, no site visit required, though it's a starting number for budgeting, not a code determination.

CA Lic. #1066117, 20+ years in business, 5.0 stars on Google from 24 reviews, serving Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo, Ventura, Oxnard, and unincorporated Ventura County.

Frequently Asked Questions

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• ADU Cost in Ventura County (2026)
• Garage Conversion ADU Guide