Key Takeaways
- New Colorado building codes will reshape custom home design across the Colorado Springs Front Range, emphasizing energy efficiency, sustainability, and climate resilience.
- The Model Low Energy and Carbon Code, effective July 2026, prioritizes electric systems, improved air quality, and wildfire-resistant materials while offering flexibility in how builders meet compliance.
- Larger custom luxury homes will face the greatest design and cost challenges under the new codes, particularly for features like gas appliances, open floor plans, and fireplaces.
- Builders can leverage the code’s “carrot-over-stick” approach to earn energy credits and offset design limitations through smart planning and efficient technologies.
Suppose you’ve been thinking about building your custom dream home in the Colorado Springs, El Paso area. In that case, you might want to familiarize yourself with the state’s newly adopted Model Low Energy and Carbon Code. Based on the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code, Colorado legislators customized it for the state’s climate and housing needs in House Bill 22-1362. Its mandates, which take effect in July 2026, require home builders to reconsider certain aspects of custom home design, particularly for homes exceeding 5,000 square feet. If you don’t have time to figure out the code’s impact, make sure you work with a Colorado custom home builder that does.
With over 35 years of custom home building experience in Colorado Springs and the Douglas, El Paso, and Elbert County Front Range area, Murphy’s Custom Homes is diligent about keeping abreast of any regulatory developments that may affect home building. As such, we have familiarized ourselves with how these new Colorado building code changes will affect custom home design. Let’s review how the Model Low Energy and Carbon Code may affect the design of your custom dream home.
New Code Purpose and Overview
Colorado legislators adopted the Model Low Energy and Carbon Code to boost energy efficiency, improve indoor air quality, and enhance housing resilience against climate impacts like wildfires and severe storms. Because researchers estimate that buildings contribute about 10% of Colorado’s greenhouse gas emissions, the code focuses on decarbonization by encouraging a shift toward all-electric homes. This, regulators hope, will result in a 20-30% reduction in building emissions compared to prior codes.
These changes to Colorado building codes are designed “to increase flexibility for builders by providing multiple options to achieve efficiency,” and by removing mandatory renewable energy requirements. It prioritizes a carrot over a stick approach by fairly valuing the much lower energy use of highly efficient electric heat pumps and water heaters compared to fossil-fuel-based options. This means that new homes adopting the energy-efficient electric options may not need to incorporate other energy efficiency measures into their builds. The code includes a sliding scale of energy efficiency, under which homes smaller than 5,000 square feet must meet baseline requirements. Homes between 5,000 and 7,499 square feet need to achieve 7-10% better energy efficiency than the baseline, and homes above 7,500 square feet must achieve net-zero energy.
Some key features of the Colorado Building Code changes include:
- New minimum standards for insulation, windows, and HVAC systems
- Credits for high-efficiency electric heat pumps and water pumps, making them cheaper than gas alternatives.
- Carbon calculation penalties for using gas appliances.
- Required wiring for solar panels and EV chargers in new builds.
- Voluntary incorporation of on-site renewable energy, like solar power.
- Enhanced use of fire-rated materials.
- Integration with fire codes to encourage wildfire-resiliant design.
- New ventilation standards.
- Encourages the usage of sustainable materials.
- Smarter building envelope requirements for severe weather.
New Building Code Impacts on Custom Home Design
Changes to Colorado building codes will have a greater impact on custom home design than they will on tract developments. Custom homes are typically larger and strive to incorporate luxury features that may not be amenable to the new code. Thus, custom home builders, architects, and designers must prioritize sustainability and energy efficiency in the design phase over aesthetics.
One way they’re doing this is by incorporating “passive house” principles early in the planning process, such as thicker walls for insulation, south-facing orientations for solar gain, and triple-pane windows for higher-elevation homes. They’re also using energy-modeling software to simulate energy performance values before blueprints are finalized, and calculating how they can utilize energy credits to provide offsets elsewhere, which may enable innovative design.
Because the new Colorado building codes push all-electric by default, luxury design features such as rustic fireplaces, chef’s kitchens with gas stoves, and even open floor plans will be challenging to incorporate without energy offsets. The larger the planned custom home, the more difficult and costly it might be to find and include such offsets.
Open floor plans face additional challenges from other new elements of the code. Open floor plans typically require more robust insulation; however, this requirement will be further amplified by the new enhanced insulation and building envelope standards. To meet estimated heat loss thresholds, a new custom home with an open floor plan may require significantly thicker walls, triple-paned windows, and may need to adjust aesthetic choices to comply with the code. New ventilation and indoor air quality standards may necessitate a custom home design with an open floor plan, allowing for the creation of an energy-efficient HVAC system with ducts and vents that ensure proper air flow. Additionally, wildfire resilience code features may require an open floor to use fire-glazed windows or shutters, which can compromise the seamless appearance a homeowner might be seeking.
Navigate Colorado’s Building Codes with Murphy’s Custom Homes
The bottom line with Colorado’s new building codes is that they will definitely have an impact on custom home design. The larger the planned home and the more desired luxury features, the greater the impediments and the higher the costs of meeting code compliance. For instance, an 8,000-square-foot home with open-floor plans, gas cooking, and fireplaces will likely face substantial hurdles in meeting the energy performance score required for code compliance. For starters, the homeowner would likely need to incorporate substantial solar power generation into their plans as a primary energy credit to offset their poor energy performance score.
If you’re concerned about how the new Colorado building codes might affect your plans for building a custom home in the Colorado Springs Front Range region, consult with an experienced home builder who excels in meeting building codes with innovative builds. Murphy’s Custom Homes has been navigating Colorado building code changes for nearly four decades and is highly adept at building code-compliant homes while fulfilling its clients’ custom dream home expectations. To learn more about our expertise, please review our portfolio, and then contact us at (719) 488-8818.
FAQs: Colorado Building Codes
Q: Will Colorado Building Code changes affect custom home building costs?
A: The new building code changes could add between 5% to 15% to the upfront costs of building a custom home in Colorado, though smaller custom builds should experience lower level increases. Additionally, state officials believe the upfront costs will be offset in the longer term by lower utility bills and state rebate programs.
Q: Do the new Colorado building codes ban wood-burning stoves and fireplaces?
A: No, they’re not banned, but the codes encourage electric or gas fireplaces as an alternative. Those wanting to incorporate a wood-burning stove or fireplace in their custom home would likely have to offset its emissions with other costly, energy-saving, and decarbonization features.
Q: How do the new building codes affect open-floor concept designs?
A: Open-floor plan designs will typically require new custom homes to have thicker walls and insulation, high-performance windows, and robust ventilation systems to meet the code’s energy and air quality standards.
Q: Do the new building codes ban fossil fuel systems in new home builds?
A: No, but the codes incentivize all-electric systems through energy credits, and penalize custom homes that use fossil fuels with a lower energy performance score that must be met to comply with the code. Thus, any use of fossil fuels in a new home build must be offset by other energy-saving features.