Good morning. On 1 September a sentence in the electrical code switched itself off. No extension has replaced it, the trade body that asked for two more years is still waiting for an answer, and where the code is enforced, the callback risk is now sitting on your ticket.
Top story — the HVAC carve-out from outdoor GFCI has lapsed, and the parts meant to make it workable aren't reliably on the shelf
Section 210.8(F) of the National Electrical Code requires ground-fault protection on outdoor outlets at dwellings. An "outlet," as NAHB puts it, is any point where current is taken to supply equipment — so the section catches a hardwired condenser or heat pump, not just a receptacle. That is why an electrical rule lands on HVAC work. Since 2022 a temporary exception has kept listed HVAC equipment out of it. It dated itself in its own second sentence. In the 2026 edition it reads: "GFCI protection shall not be required for listed HVAC equipment. This exception shall expire September 1, 2026."
That date has passed. Worth being precise about what that means: the NEC is a model code with no force of its own. It binds you only where your state or local authority adopted it, in the edition adopted, as that authority amended it. Where it was adopted unamended, the carve-out is gone.
Here is the part worth checking before you assume it misses you. An older code book does not, by itself, save you. AHRI's amendment request reproduces 210.8(F) for the 2020, 2023 and 2026 editions one after another, and the sunset sentence is word-for-word identical in all three. What keeps you out of it is a state or local amendment, or a pre-2020 edition that never carried the section — or, in practice, an authority that has adopted it and has not started enforcing it.
This was also already argued and lost, a year ago. In August 2025 the NFPA Standards Council denied appeals from ACCA, from AHRI's counsel and from Mitsubishi Electric, all seeking to push the date to 2029. The Council's words: the appeal "does not present any clear and substantial basis upon which to overturn the results yielded by the NFPA standards development process."
So AHRI came back with a narrower ask — TIA 1924, filed against all three editions, moving the date to 1 September 2028. Its substantiation runs for pages and opens with one sentence: "Despite ongoing efforts from the HVAC manufacturers and GFCI manufacturers, more time is needed to develop products compatible to the GFCI requirements listed in NFPA 70, Section 210.8(F)." Comments closed 9 September. AHRI's Tom Deary told The ACHR News it is "the last opportunity for us to correct this issue at the model code level."
As at writing, no decision on that request had been published. Until one is, the requirement is live wherever it was adopted — and on NAHB's own account, the devices that make complying painless are still arriving.
Quick hits
The committee's stated reason for refusing more time is one sentence, and AHRI has made that the point. Its filing quotes the technical committee as saying: "CMP-2 reaffirms the expiration date of September 1, 2026, to help drive urgency in resolving the problem of incompatibility." AHRI's reply, in the same document: "'Driving urgency' does not constitute technical justification and clearly this effort did not yield the committee's intended results." Read both as AHRI's case — the quotation and the claim that it is the whole of the committee's reasoning are alike AHRI's, made in a document arguing for a delay.
The 2026 edition widened the net while the clock ran out. The threshold in 210.8(F) moves from 50 amperes or less in the 2020 and 2023 editions to 60 amperes or less in 2026 — straight off the code text reproduced in AHRI's filing. More of your outdoor equipment sits inside the rule, not less. The 2026 edition did add a Class C special-purpose GFCI pathway for HVAC, which NFPA's own decision record confirms went in at First Draft as First Revision No. 7748.
How many states have opted out depends on who you ask. AHRI's filing says 25 states have, in adopting the NEC, removed the sunset date, exempted HVAC, or deleted 210.8(F) entirely. NAHB, writing on 13 August, put it at at least 19 states that have "amended, delayed or limited the requirement in some manner" — plus eight more still on pre-2020 editions, which is a different thing counted separately. Two trade bodies, two counts, and neither published the state list alongside its number. That is not a figure to run a job off.
The Tip — get the answer in writing, then settle who pays for the second visit
Call the authority having jurisdiction and ask two questions, not one. Which NEC edition do you enforce, and are you enforcing 210.8(F) against listed HVAC equipment now that the exception has lapsed? Adoption and enforcement are not the same step — NAHB is telling its own members to go and ask local inspectors how they intend to handle the transition, which tells you it varies. Get the answer by email. A verbal at the counter is hard to rely on at a re-inspection six weeks later.
Then settle the callback question before the first callback, not after. If a code-required device trips on equipment that was installed correctly and is running normally, who pays for the truck roll? That is a question about your warranty wording and your state's consumer law, so put it to whoever writes your contracts — not to a newsletter, and not to a line pasted out of one. But put it to them this week, get an answer you can live with, and say it to the customer at handover rather than at the callback.
And record the device. Make, model and part number of the GFCI on every outdoor HVAC job, photographed, filed against the job. AHRI's filing reproduces its own preliminary Phase II test results, which read: "GFCI devices exhibit wide variability in response to high-frequency differential current. Some devices trip at relatively low HF current magnitudes at specific frequencies, while others remain robust to the same stimulus". If one breaker family starts generating your callbacks, writing it down is how you find out.
One more, on ordering: don't assume the part is on the shelf. NAHB reported last month that some residential Class C SPGFCI products "are not yet widely available," that certain manufacturers expected residential Class C products to arrive "only after the deadline passes," and that high-frequency-rated GFCIs "are only now entering the market." Check availability in the panel family and amperage you actually fit before you quote a date.
Tool watch — [Not sponsored]
The TIA itself, free, at docinfofiles.nfpa.org — search "NFPA 70 Proposed TIA 1924." It is the most useful single document in this fight, because it prints the actual 210.8(F) text for the 2020, 2023 and 2026 editions one after another with the change marked. If you are standing in front of an inspector arguing about which edition says what, that is the page to have open. NFPA publishes its Standards Council decisions in full too — that is where the 2025 refusal sits, reasoning included, in plain language.
That's the callout. See you next time.
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Sources: NFPA — proposed TIA Log No. 1924, NFPA 70 (210.8(F) Exception No. 2) · NFPA — Standards Council Final Decision D#25-5, 20 August 2025 · NAHB — "Sept. 1 Deadline Looms for Code Changes on Outdoor Outlets, GFCIs," 13 August 2026 · ACHR News — "AHRI, ACCA Seek Delay As HVAC GFCI Deadline Nears," 27 August 2026