Guide · Energy calculations
Florida energy calculations, included in your plans.
Every new Florida home shows energy code compliance with its permit application. Here is what the calculations cover, the forms involved and how the air conditioning gets sized. They come in every Dashline home package.
Three paths
Three ways a new home can comply.
The Florida Energy Code lets a home comply in one of three ways. The compliance form for the chosen path goes in with the permit application.
Prescriptive
The house meets each listed minimum, such as insulation values and window ratings. Its form is Form R402 for the 2023 code.
Performance
Software approved by the Florida Building Commission compares your design with a reference home and prints Form R405. A report on the design goes with the permit application.
Energy rating index
The home earns an energy rating index score instead, under its own section of the code.
On the drawings
What the plans have to show.
The energy information is not only in the form. The drawings carry it too, so the reviewer and the inspector can check the house against the calculation.
- The compliance path
- Insulation materials and their R values
- Window U factor and solar heat gain coefficient
- Mechanical design criteria, equipment types, sizes and efficiencies, and controls
- Duct sealing and insulation
- Air sealing details and the thermal envelope
Air conditioning
Sized to the house, not guessed.
The code requires the heating and cooling equipment to be sized with ACCA Manual S, from the loads calculated with ACCA Manual J, without extra safety factors. Cooling capacity is capped at 1.15 times the calculated total load.
In our sample home
The sample plan set sizes a 2 ton heat pump from its Manual J, S and D calculations, and the wall types list the insulation of every wall that the calculation uses.
Some building departments, such as Orange County and the City of Jacksonville, also ask for Manual D duct design.When they are filed
Before the permit, and again at the end.
With the permit application
The compliance report on the proposed design goes in with the application for the building permit.
Before the certificate of occupancy
On the performance path an as built report follows before the certificate of occupancy, unless nothing changed from the permitted design.
If you sell the home
Florida law requires the energy performance display card as an addendum to each sales contract for the home.
Included in your package
Florida energy code calculations are part of every Dashline home package, prepared with the same design the plans show.
Based on the Florida Building Code, Energy Conservation, 8th Edition (2023), sections R101.5, R103.2, R401.2, R401.3, R403.7 and R405.4, checked in October 2026. The 9th Edition is scheduled for December 31, 2026. Source: Florida Building Commission.
Plans and energy calculations together.
Fixed prices with engineering and energy calculations included, delivered 15 business days after your project starts.