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By Sebastian Edward-West · Last updated May 29, 2026

Surrey Step Code Requirements

Current Step: 3 | ACH Target: 2.5 ACH50 final | Mid-construction gate: 4.0 ACH50 before insulation inspection | Zero Carbon: EL-1 | Climate Zone: 4 | HDD: ~2,900 | Permit Office: City of Surrey

The one thing that makes a Surrey permit different from almost everywhere else in the Lower Mainland is the mandatory mid-construction blower door test. In Surrey you do not get to defer airtightness verification to the end of the job. The City requires a blower door test — and a passing result of 4.0 ACH50 or lower — before the insulation inspection will be signed off. Miss that gate and your insulation inspection does not happen, which means drywall does not go up, which means your whole schedule stalls. This page is the builder-focused walkthrough of how that gate works, how the rest of the permit sequence runs at the City of Surrey, and where Surrey Part 9 builds most often trip up.

The mid-construction test is the headline requirement

Most BC municipalities only require a final as-built blower door test before occupancy, and merely recommend a mid-construction test. Surrey is one of a small group — alongside Abbotsford and the Fraser Valley Regional District — that makes the mid-construction test a hard requirement tied to an inspection milestone.

Here is the sequence that matters: after the air barrier and framing are complete but before insulation goes in and before drywall closes the walls, a blower door test is run on site. The result has to come in at 4.0 ACH50 or tighter for the City to release the insulation inspection. That 4.0 number is a Surrey-specific mid-construction checkpoint, not the final compliance target — think of it as a gate that proves your air barrier is real and continuous while the walls are still open and cheap to fix.

Why 4.0 mid-construction when the final Step 3 target is 2.5? Because at mid-construction stage the building is not finished — drywall, taped joints, and final detailing all tighten the envelope further between the mid test and the final test. A house that reads 4.0 with open walls will typically land comfortably under 2.5 ACH50 once it is closed in and finished. The mid-construction gate is the City’s way of catching a leaky air barrier at the only point in the build where fixing it is still a half-day of caulk and tape rather than a drywall demolition.

For the full ladder of airtightness thresholds and what each step demands of your crew, see the ACH targets by step reference.

What’s required right now in Surrey

Step 3 is the energy floor for all new Part 9 residential in Surrey, the provincial minimum since the 2024 BC Building Code took full effect on March 10, 2025. Layered on top of it is Zero Carbon Step Code EL-1 — the “measure and disclose” emission level. EL-1 does not force you to electrify; it requires that your project’s operational greenhouse-gas emissions be calculated and reported in the as-built compliance report at occupancy. No carbon reduction is mandated at EL-1, only measurement, so a gas-heated Surrey home still complies as long as the emissions are disclosed.

The compliance targets, then, are:

  • Final airtightness: 2.5 ACH50, verified by the final blower door test before occupancy.
  • Mid-construction airtightness gate: 4.0 ACH50 or tighter, verified before the insulation inspection.
  • Zero Carbon EL-1: operational GHG emissions measured and disclosed at occupancy.

Step 3 is a performance standard, not a prescriptive checklist, so an energy model has to demonstrate numerically that the design meets the targets. In practice essentially every new Surrey build now requires HOT2000 energy modelling plus both the mid-construction and as-built blower door tests.

Permit process at the City of Surrey

  1. Pre-construction. A registered energy advisor models the design in HOT2000 and produces the pre-construction BC Energy Compliance Report and the provincial compliance checklist. These go in with your building permit application to the City of Surrey building department. Surrey is one of BC’s highest-volume permitting jurisdictions, so build realistic review time into your schedule.

  2. Mid-construction — mandatory. After the air barrier and framing are done and before insulation, the pre-drywall blower door test is run. The result must be 4.0 ACH50 or lower for the insulation inspection to proceed. This is the load-bearing milestone on a Surrey build — sequence your trades and your energy advisor’s site visit around it.

  3. As-built / occupancy. The final blower door test (target 2.5 ACH50), the updated as-built compliance report, and the EL-1 GHG disclosure are all required before the occupancy permit is issued.

The sequencing trap that catches first-time Surrey Step Code builders is treating the mid-construction test as optional, the way it is in much of the province. It is not optional here, and it sits on the critical path — your insulation inspection is gated behind a passing result. Book the energy advisor’s mid-construction visit when you book your framing inspection, not after.

What Climate Zone 4 means for a Surrey envelope

Surrey sits in the mild, wet coastal Climate Zone 4 (HDD roughly 2,900) — the same band as the rest of Metro Vancouver and the lower coast. That changes the nature of the envelope problem compared with the Interior:

  • Air sealing, not insulation thickness, is the binding constraint. With a milder heating climate, the heating-load envelope demands are lower than in the Okanagan or the north. The hard part of a Surrey build is hitting the airtightness numbers — which is exactly what the mandatory mid-construction gate is testing.
  • Moisture management matters more on the coast. A tight envelope in a wet climate needs a deliberate drying strategy. Coordinate the air barrier and vapour control in your wall assembly so you are not trapping moisture while you chase ACH50.
  • CZ4 targets are less stringent on heat, stricter on tightness in practice. The thermal-demand (TEDI) targets the model has to clear are lower in CZ4 than CZ5, but the airtightness verification regime in Surrey is more demanding because of the mid-construction gate.

Because Surrey is a fast-growing, high-volume Part 9 jurisdiction, a lot of the new construction here is production housing, townhouse blocks, and small multi-unit — repeatable building types where dialling in a reliable air-sealing detail pays off across many units rather than one custom home.

Working with a Surrey / Metro Vancouver energy advisor

Step Code compliance reports in BC must be signed off by a Registered Energy Advisor (REA) — a third-party building energy professional certified through a service organization licensed by Natural Resources Canada. They are independent from the builder, and their stamp is what the City of Surrey accepts on your compliance documents. For the full breakdown of what an advisor does at each stage, see the energy advisor guide.

A Surrey build touches an energy advisor at three points, and the middle one carries more weight here than in most municipalities:

  • Design / pre-construction. The advisor reviews drawings, runs the HOT2000 model, confirms the targets are achievable, and produces the pre-construction compliance report you file with the permit.
  • Mid-construction. The on-site pre-drywall blower door test that produces the 4.0-ACH50-or-better result the City needs before releasing the insulation inspection. On a Surrey job this visit is not a nice-to-have — it is on the critical path.
  • As-built / final. The final blower door test (target 2.5 ACH50), verification that the build matches the model, the as-built compliance report, and the EL-1 GHG disclosure required before occupancy.

A practical scheduling note: the advisor does not have to be physically local for the design work — drawings can be reviewed remotely, and on-site presence is only needed for the two blower door tests. But because the Surrey mid-construction test is schedule-critical, line up your advisor’s availability for two site visits early, and confirm they can hit your insulation-inspection window.

When you book the first meeting, bring: floor plans and elevations, building section drawings showing the insulation assemblies, your wall/roof/floor R-values and vapour-barrier locations, the window and door schedule with U-values, and your mechanical spec. Confirm the required Step 3 + EL-1 and the 4.0 mid-construction gate up front so there is no rework.

Common compliance gaps in Surrey builds

Because Surrey forces the test mid-construction, the failure points show up while the walls are still open — which is the entire point. The recurring leak sources in CZ4 wood-frame construction are:

  • Bottom plates. The gap between the bottom plate and the subfloor is the single most common leak in residential framing. Seal it before it disappears behind drywall.
  • Rim / band joists. Floor-to-wall transitions, especially on two-storey and townhouse builds, where the air barrier has to make a continuous turn.
  • Service penetrations. Plumbers and electricians cut through the air barrier and move on. Walk every trade through the air-barrier strategy on day one so they reseal what they cut.
  • Window and door rough openings. Backer rod missing, sealant skipped on the warm side. Easy fix, frequently missed.
  • Attic hatch and the attached-garage interface. Standard fail points, standard fixes — gasket the hatch, carry the air barrier cleanly across the garage/living-space junction.

The economics of the Surrey gate actually work in the builder’s favour. Because the test is mandatory mid-construction, you find these leaks at the cheapest possible moment to fix them. After drywall the cost to fix the same leak roughly triples — and on a Surrey job a failed final test means you are tearing into a finished wall. See the air sealing checklist and common air leaks for the full walkthrough to run before your mid-construction visit.

What’s coming in 2027

Step 4 is expected to become the provincial minimum for Part 9 around January 2027, dropping the final airtightness target to 1.5 ACH50 — roughly a 40% improvement over Step 3’s 2.5. Surrey builders are arguably better prepared for that jump than builders in municipalities without a mid-construction gate, because the discipline Step 4 demands — a deliberate, verified-while-open air-sealing strategy — is exactly the discipline Surrey’s mandatory mid-construction test already trains. Crews that consistently clear 4.0 mid-construction and land under 2.5 final today have the habits that hit 1.5 ACH50 without drama when it becomes the floor. The how to achieve 1.5 ACH50 guide covers the sealing strategy that gets you there.

Frequently asked questions

Does Surrey require a mid-construction blower door test? Yes. Surrey requires a mandatory mid-construction blower door test before the insulation inspection, with a passing result of 4.0 ACH50 or tighter. This is above the provincial baseline — most BC municipalities only require a final as-built test and merely recommend a mid-construction one. In Surrey the insulation inspection will not be signed off without it.

What ACH50 does Surrey require? Two numbers matter. The mid-construction gate is 4.0 ACH50 or lower (verified before the insulation inspection). The final, as-built target is 2.5 ACH50 for Step 3, verified by the final blower door test before occupancy. The building tightens between the two tests as drywall and finishing go in.

What Step Code and emission level does Surrey require for a new house? Surrey requires Step 3 of the BC Energy Step Code plus Zero Carbon Step Code EL-1 for new Part 9 residential. Step 3 sets the energy and 2.5 ACH50 airtightness targets; EL-1 requires that operational GHG emissions be measured and disclosed at occupancy, with no mandated carbon reduction. Confirm the current bylaw with the City of Surrey before you apply.

Verify before you apply

Municipal requirements and inspection procedures change, and the mid-construction test threshold and sequencing are local Surrey requirements layered on top of the provincial code. This page is an orientation for builders, not the bylaw text. Before finalizing a design or submitting a permit, confirm the current Step Code, EL level, and mid-construction blower door requirements directly with the City of Surrey building department and your registered energy advisor.