What CHEERS is
CHEERS stands for California Home Energy Efficiency Rating Services. It is the sole CEC-approved Energy Code Compliance (ECC, formerly HERS) Provider in California. CHEERS:
- registers Title 24 documentation for residential projects;
- issues the official CF1R Certificate of Compliance once a project is filed;
- oversees the ECC-Raters (formerly HERS Raters) who perform field verification of installed measures;
- maintains the registry record of every CF1R registered against a property.
Functionally, CHEERS is where your CF1R lives. When a building department asks for the CF1R for a project, they're asking for the registered version that came out of CHEERS.
How the signature flow works
- We generate the CF1R for your project after compliance verification passes.
- We register the project with CHEERS. CHEERS issues the official, registered CF1R certificate.
- CHEERS emails the responsible designer you identified at the Confirm step with a signature request. The exchange between CHEERS and your designer happens directly — we're not in the loop on that conversation.
- Once the designer countersigns in CHEERS, the registry updates the CF1R to reflect the signature. We download the signed PDF from CHEERS and post it to your project dashboard.
- You receive an email letting you know the signed CF1R is ready for permit submittal.
Turnaround on the designer-signature step depends entirely on your designer's responsiveness. If the signature is slow, we send periodic reminders through CHEERS. You can also nudge your designer directly — they'll have a CHEERS account and a link to the project waiting for them.
Useful CHEERS resources
- CHEERS website — registry, rater finder, training, and program documentation.
- CHEERS YouTube channel — training videos for designers and walkthroughs for homeowners.
The ECC rename (formerly HERS)
As of January 1, 2026, the program formerly known as HERS (Home Energy Rating System) was renamed to ECC (Energy Code Compliance). All existing HERS Providers and HERS Raters were recognized as ECC-Providers and ECC-Raters at that date. CHEERS itself didn't change — only the program name. You'll see the new ECC terminology on current CF1Rs and field-verification certificates; older documents you encounter will still use HERS terminology.