Fremont Window Replacement on the Express Like-for-Like Permit

Mission Peak above Lake Elizabeth in Fremont. Photo: Oleg Alexandrov, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The houses here

Ranch houses opened to the yard through picture windows and sliders

Fremont's 2009 historic context of Glenmoor Gardens and Mission Ranch describes the house most of the city's postwar tracts were built around. The Ranch house was low and horizontal and made much of its connection to the outdoors, and even the most modest tract models tended to include front and rear porches, picture windows and sliding glass doors onto a rear patio, with the principal rooms opened to the exterior through generous amounts of glass. The Housing Element puts the largest share of the city's homes in the years 1960 to 1979. A house built in 1976 or earlier has now passed the 50-year line at which Fremont asks for a historic evaluation before exterior permits.

The work

Window work, and how far Fremont's express record stretches

Units set into the existing openings
The express record covers residential window replacement that removes or alters no framing, and its plan sheet adds that no wall alterations are permitted under it. The sheet asks for two floor plans, the windows and doors as they are and the ones being replaced, marked N for a new unit, E for an existing one left alone and D/C where the direction a window or door opens changes. Work that cuts into framing moves to the general Building Permit used for residential alterations.
The slider onto the back patio
A glazed door is fenestration under the Energy Code, so a new patio slider is held to the same figures as the windows, and Fremont's plan sheet covers windows and doors together. Under Section R324 of the 2025 California Residential Code, the glass in every fixed and operable panel of a swinging, sliding or bifold door is a hazardous location that needs safety glazing. The exceptions are decorative glass and openings too small for a 3-inch sphere to pass through.
A picture window that reaches toward the floor
Large glass beside a walkway is the other hazardous location a Ranch living room tends to have. The 2025 code requires safety glazing in a single pane larger than 9 square feet when its bottom edge sits less than 18 inches above the floor, its top edge is more than 36 inches up, and a walking surface lies within 36 inches of it. A horizontal rail 34 to 38 inches above the walking surface, built to the code's load figure, is one of the exceptions.
A half bath that vents through its window
Fremont's express bathroom sheet repeats a residential code exception: a bathroom with no tub or shower needs no exhaust fan if it has a window of at least 3 square feet, half of which opens. Swapping that window for a fixed or smaller unit would take the room out of the exception and leave it needing a fan, so check the size and the opening portion of a powder-room window before the order goes in.
Bedroom windows behind security bars
The window sheet lists the escape rules for sleeping rooms: a net clear opening of 5.7 square feet, or 5 at grade, at least 24 inches high and 20 wide, with the bottom of the opening no more than 44 inches above the floor. Bars, grilles and grates may cover such a window only if the clear opening still meets those sizes, they release from inside without a key, tool, special knowledge or extra force, and they carry an approved exterior release device.

Permits and local rules

Fremont pages and state code a window order should match

Residential Window Replacement, an express record
Express permits are applied for online through Citizen Access and issued automatically, and the city keeps them for projects with a limited scope of work. Residential Window Replacement is one: residential window projects that do not involve the removal or alteration of any framing. Larger alterations and repairs go on the general Building Permit record. The same page lists the Historic Evaluation Request, which properties 50 years or older must go through before permits for demolition, relocation or exterior modifications are issued.
Source: City of Fremont Planning & Building Permits (fremont.gov)
The like-for-like window and door plan
Written to the 2025 California Residential, Energy and Wildland-Urban Interface Codes, the Express Residential Window and Door Replacement Plan sets its retrofit figures at a maximum U-factor of 0.27 and a maximum SHGC of 0.23, and asks that window stickers stay on the product so the field inspector can verify them. Windows in the Wildland-Urban Interface district require tempered glazing, and every unit is installed to the manufacturer's requirements. The sheet also asks for the parcel number and the floor where the work takes place.
Source: City of Fremont Building & Safety Division (fremont.gov)
What the state Energy Code sets in Climate Zone 3
Section 150.2 lets replacement windows totaling 75 square feet or less use a U-factor of 0.40, and attaches a 0.35 heat gain limit only in Zones 2, 4 and 6 through 15. Larger replacements meet Table 150.1-A, which for Zone 3 means a U-factor of 0.27 and no SHGC maximum. New glass in an existing sash and frame, or new sashes in an existing frame, count as repairs if they at least match the original's performance. The city's 0.23 is tighter than the state table, so ask Plans and Permits staff which figure governs the job.
Source: California Energy Commission, 2025 Energy Code (energy.ca.gov)
The hill zones Fremont maps for itself
Fremont adopted CAL FIRE's updated Fire Hazard Severity Zones in 2025, reclassifying some areas as Moderate, High or Very High, and it keeps its own Very High designations as well: the hill areas east of Mission Boulevard and east of I-680, Ardenwood Historic Farm and Coyote Hills Regional Park. Municipal Code Chapter 15.65 covers the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Area and Chapter 15.66 is the city's Wildland-Urban Interface Code. Confirm whether the address falls in the WUI district before ordering glass.
Source: Fremont Fire Department, Fire Prevention Bureau (fremont.gov)

State license for this work: C-17 Glazing, B General Building. Look up a contractor's license on the CSLB website (cslb.ca.gov).

Questions

Fremont window questions, from tract sliders to hill glass

Our Fremont house was built in 1968. Does a window job need a Historic Evaluation Request?

Possibly. Fremont's permit page says properties 50 years or older must go through a Historic Evaluation Request before permits for exterior modifications are issued, and a 1968 house is past that age. Whether a like-for-like replacement counts as an exterior modification is a question for Planning staff, by email, before the express record is filed. The Historical Architectural Review Board itself decides on historic resources and on buildings other than single-family houses in the historic districts.

Why does Fremont's window sheet ask for SHGC 0.23 when the state sets no limit here?

The 2025 Energy Code's prescriptive table puts Fremont, in Climate Zone 3, at a U-factor of 0.27 with no SHGC maximum, and lets a replacement of 75 square feet or less use U-0.40. The city's like-for-like plan sheet lists 0.27 and 0.23 for every retrofit window. A unit that meets both avoids the question at inspection; if a preferred product misses the city's heat gain figure, ask Plans and Permits staff before ordering.

Do we need a permit just to replace fogged glass in our Fremont sliders?

The Energy Code treats new glass in an existing sash and frame, or new sashes in an existing frame, as a repair rather than a replacement, provided the new glass performs at least as well as the original. Fremont's list of construction work you can do without a permit does not mention windows or glazing, so ask Plans and Permits staff by email before the glass is ordered.

Do lead-safe rules apply to a window job on a Fremont tract house?

In any house built before 1978, yes. EPA's renovation rule exempts small paint disturbances, but it states that window replacement is always covered regardless of square footage, so the firm needs EPA's renovation credential and lead-safe work practices. With the largest share of Fremont's homes built from 1960 to 1979, a great many of the city's tract houses fall under it.

Our house is in the hills east of Mission Boulevard. What changes for new windows?

Those hills are inside the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone that Fremont designates itself. If the address is also in the Wildland-Urban Interface district, the city's window sheet requires tempered glazing in every window, on top of the U-0.27 and SHGC 0.23 figures. Check the address on the city's zone map before ordering, and ask that the tempering be written on the order for each unit.

Keep exploring

More on window replacement work and Fremont

Window replacement in other cities

Other trades in Fremont

Guides and smaller jobs

Where this page belongs

Where these facts come from

Checked against these public sources in October 2026. Rules and programs change: confirm permit requirements with the city before work starts, and a contractor's license on the CSLB website.

fremont.gov: permit types (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: 639040650141930000 (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: 639040650717530000 (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: permit forms handouts (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: 637769005420130000 (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: vegetation management (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: historical architectural review board (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: 638416080467670000 (fremont.gov)
fremont.gov: 638151808164530000 (fremont.gov)
energy.ca.gov: CEC 400 2025 010 F (energy.ca.gov)
energy.ca.gov: BuildingClimateZonesByZIPCode ada (energy.ca.gov)
dublin.ca.gov: Safety Glazing (dublin.ca.gov)

Swapping windows in Fremont: picture windows, patio sliders, hill-zone glass

Get quotes for window replacement work in Fremont

Questions for the Fremont window contractor before the order goes in

Ranch houses opened to the yard through picture windows and sliders

Window work, and how far Fremont's express record stretches

Units set into the existing openings

The slider onto the back patio

A picture window that reaches toward the floor

A half bath that vents through its window

Bedroom windows behind security bars

Fremont pages and state code a window order should match

Residential Window Replacement, an express record

The like-for-like window and door plan

What the state Energy Code sets in Climate Zone 3

The hill zones Fremont maps for itself