Building codes & construction
Heat-pump baseline
The 2025 Energy Code's standard-design assumption of heat-pump space and water heating — gas designs must offset the difference, pushing all-electric buildings.
Definition
The heat-pump baseline is how the 2025 Energy Code (Part 6) pushes electrification without banning gas: under the performance path, the "standard design" a project is scored against assumes heat-pump space heating and/or water heating. A gas-fired design isn't prohibited — it simply starts with an efficiency deficit it must buy back elsewhere in the building through better envelope, equipment or added measures. The 2022 standards introduced the approach for single-family homes by climate zone; the 2025 standards extend it across most new buildings, multifamily included.
Why it matters in an underwrite
Each code cycle makes gas designs more expensive to comply, so the practical default for new multifamily is drifting all-electric: heat-pump HVAC plus central or in-unit heat-pump water heating. That trades gas-infrastructure savings against larger electrical services and equipment cost — and makes early service-capacity coordination with the utility (the PG&E Greenbook governs service requirements in PG&E territory) part of schematic design, not a construction-phase detail.
Sources & related guides
See also
See the term in the law itself
Read the controlling text in the Code Library, or ask the AI how it applies to your project.
Last reviewed 2026-07-29. General information, not legal advice.