Texas Electrician ExamTexas journeyman & master

Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

A GFCI exception for air conditioners expires September 1, and Texas left the expiry out

The same equipment, the same code section, two different answers depending on which side of the state line the question was written on. Yours was written on this side.

On this page
  1. The sunset that does not reach Texas
  2. The third exception, which most summaries skip
  3. Why the motor rules do not fit this equipment
  4. Two currents on one nameplate, and which one wins
  5. What the two marked numbers mean
  6. The disconnect and the service receptacle
  7. Working an item of this shape
  8. What to tab
  9. What this page cites

The sunset that does not reach Texas

The national text at NEC 210.8(F) carries an exception for listed heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, and printed inside that exception is a sentence saying it shall expire September 1, 2026.

Texas adopted the section with that sentence taken out. Under 16 TAC 73.100(b) the exception has no expiry here, so on September 2 the exemption is still doing exactly what it did on August 31.

That matters twice over. On your paper, because a Texas examination is written against the code Texas adopted. And afterward on the job, because a nationally written course, a national trade article and every summary aimed at the whole country will tell you this lapsed, and in Texas it did not.

The third exception, which most summaries skip

Losing that exception is not the same as losing the relief. The 2026 edition added a third exception to NEC 210.8(F), and it does not expire at all. It permits a listed Class C special purpose ground-fault circuit interrupter on listed HVAC equipment, and where one is fitted, the disconnect serving that equipment carries a warning label saying Class C SPGFCI protection is provided for the unit.

A Class C device is not the Class A GFCI you know from a bathroom receptacle. It is a listed special purpose device for circuits with no conductor over 300 volts to ground, used where reliable equipment grounding or double insulation is provided, and it lets through more leakage current before it opens than a Class A device does.

The subsection carries an informational note alongside it, pointing at special purpose devices marked HF or HF plus. Those are built for the high-frequency leakage current that inverters and variable speed drives put on a circuit, which is the nuisance tripping this whole argument has been about.

Texas adopted the rest of the subsection as written, so the Class C route is open here too. It is just not the only one open here, and that is the whole difference.

One more thing moved in the same subsection in this edition. The ceiling on the branch circuits it reaches went up, from 50 amperes to 60.

If an item describes an outdoor unit at a dwelling and offers you an answer that turns on the exception having expired, that answer was written for a different state. If it offers you an answer that turns on a Class C device being acceptable, that route is in the national text and Texas adopted it, so it stands here.

Why the motor rules do not fit this equipment

The compressor in a condensing unit or a heat pump is sealed in the same housing as its motor. There is no shaft coming out of it and no horsepower on the plate, because the motor and the compressor were never sold as separate machines.

The ordinary motor method starts by looking a horsepower up in a full-load current table. With nothing to look up, that method has nowhere to begin. So Article 440 works from what the manufacturer measured instead, which arrives on the nameplate as a current in amperes.

Article 440 modifies the motor article rather than replacing it. Plenty of the general motor requirements still apply, and the compressor article says which. That is why an item about a rooftop unit can send you to two articles and why answering it out of the motor article alone gives a confident wrong number.

The wording of the stem is the tell. Hermetic, compressor, condensing unit, rated-load current and branch-circuit selection current all point at Article 440. Horsepower, service factor and a table lookup point at Article 430.

Two currents on one nameplate, and which one wins

Rated-load current is what the compressor draws running at its rated load, voltage and frequency. It is the base number the article works from.

Branch-circuit selection current is printed on some equipment and not on others. Where it is printed, it is the number you use in place of the rated-load current when you size conductors, the disconnect, the controller and the protective device. It is never the smaller of the two.

That is why the sizing rules in Article 440 keep saying whichever is greater. The phrase is not there for symmetry. It is there because a nameplate that prints both numbers is handing you a decision, and an item that prints both is testing whether you noticed the second one and used it.

If only one current is printed, there is no decision to make. If two are printed, the larger one is the one that works.

What the two marked numbers mean

Packaged equipment arrives with a minimum circuit ampacity and a maximum overcurrent protective device rating marked on it. Between them they are the manufacturer handing you the answer to a calculation you would otherwise have to build.

The minimum circuit ampacity is the floor for the conductors. The manufacturer has already combined the compressor, the condenser fan, any indoor blower and any electric heat that ships in the same cabinet, applied the multipliers the code calls for, and printed the result. Your conductor is selected to carry at least that, after your own ambient and bundling corrections and after the termination temperature limit.

The maximum overcurrent protective device rating is a ceiling rather than a target. It is the largest device the equipment is listed to sit behind, and it exists because a device too large will not protect the internal wiring of the unit.

Where a nameplate gives you no maximum, the branch circuit short circuit and ground fault protection rules in Article 440 do the work instead. They take you to 175 percent of whichever of the two currents above is greater, and they let you go on up toward 225 percent only where the equipment will not start on the lower figure. Both are ceilings you are allowed to reach, not targets to aim at.

Where a nameplate does give you a maximum, that marking governs wherever it is lower than what the percentages would allow, and on packaged equipment it usually is. Neither percentage gets you past a printed maximum.

The disconnect and the service receptacle

Article 440 has its own disconnecting means part, and the reason is the same as everywhere else in the book: somebody is going to be on that roof or in that side yard with the cover off.

NEC 440.14 puts the disconnecting means within sight from the equipment and readily accessible from it. Those are two separate requirements and an item will usually test the second one, because the first is the one everybody remembers. It is allowed to sit on or within the equipment itself. It is not allowed on a panel that has to come off to reach the equipment, and it is not allowed to obscure the nameplate, which would be a neat way of hiding the two numbers the last section was about.

Within sight is a defined term in Article 100 and it has a distance inside it. Readily accessible is a second defined term and it is about what stands between the technician and the handle. Look both up rather than trusting the everyday meaning of either.

NEC 440.15 is new in this edition and it is the kind of small new section that gets written into an item early. On a split system in other than a one- or two-family dwelling, the outdoor disconnecting means is marked with the location of the indoor units it feeds. The problem it solves is a bank of outdoor units against one wall and no way to tell which apartment each one serves.

There is also a receptacle question hiding near this equipment. NEC 210.63 puts a servicing receptacle outlet near heating, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment so a technician has somewhere to plug in, and the section states the distance and the location, so read it in your own book rather than carrying a number in.

Where that equipment sits outdoors at a dwelling, the servicing outlet is an ordinary general use receptacle in an outdoor location. It is not the equipment, so the exception for listed heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment has nothing to say about it, and neither does the Class C route.

That distinction is the whole reason the amendment is interesting rather than trivial. Two outlets can be four feet apart on the same wall and be answered differently, because one of them serves the listed equipment and one of them is there for a technician with a drill.

Working an item of this shape

The order matters more here than on most items, because two of the steps below undo each other if you run them the wrong way round.

  1. Read the equipment description and decide whether a sealed compressor is in it. If it is, you are in Article 440 and the motor tables are off the table.
  2. Find the marked values in the stem. If two currents are printed, use the larger. If a minimum circuit ampacity and a maximum device rating are printed, the item is testing which one is a floor and which is a ceiling.
  3. Size the conductor at or above the minimum circuit ampacity, then apply your corrections and check the termination limit, which is where a correct ampacity still loses to a screw.
  4. Select the protective device at or below the marked maximum, and resist the habit of stepping up to the next standard rating.
  5. If ground-fault protection is in the stem, ask three things in order: does the outlet serve the listed equipment or serve a person, is a Class C device in the description, and which state are you being examined in.

What to tab

Article 440 is not long and most candidates have never opened it. Twenty minutes with it is one of the better returns available on the equipment area of the outline.

Tab it at the disconnecting means part and at the branch circuit rules, and mark NEC 440.15 while you are there because it is new and easy to miss.

Put a second tab on NEC 210.8(F) and write the Texas rule number beside it. Read all three exceptions under that subsection while the book is open, not just the one everybody is arguing about, because the third one is the answer to a question the second one cannot reach.

What this page cites

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