Gfci protection for an A/C disconnect

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OK Sparky 93

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In a 2023 CEU class, it was told that air conditioning disconnect or the a/c itself was required to be gfci protected in residential.

The guy was pushing retirement probably should have been.

Anyway, going through code and looking at the changes and just trying to stay abreast of it all.

I don’t see it.

210.8 A now requiring 125v thru 250 volt no matter the amps, for “receptacles”.

210.8 F is “outlets” 150 volts or less and 50 amps or or less for outdoors.

I see no mention in 440
 
The requirements are for AC unit, including those with variable speed drives.

The TIA delaying this requirement is because the variable speed drives will likely cause nuisance tripping of the GFCIs.

IMHO safety for hard wired outlets is better provided by some sort of assured EGC system than by a class A GFCI. Perhaps some sort of hybrid device which acts as a GFCI desensitized by an intact EGC, so that you tolerate high leakage if you have an intact green wire shunting that leakage away from people.

Jon
 
winnie said:
The requirements are for AC unit, including those with variable speed drives.

The TIA delaying this requirement is because the variable speed drives will likely cause nuisance tripping of the GFCIs.

IMHO safety for hard wired outlets is better provided by some sort of assured EGC system than by a class A GFCI. Perhaps some sort of hybrid device which acts as a GFCI desensitized by an intact EGC, so that you tolerate high leakage if you have an intact green wire shunting that leakage away from people.

Jon
Click to expand...
I'm ok if they can just slap a device that does this into the units by 2026. Or other option make a disconnect with an internal device that does this. It's not like the ground in an old range circuit so they can just use the same method as EV chargers are using.
 
winnie said:
The requirements are for AC unit, including those with variable speed drives.

The TIA delaying this requirement is because the variable speed drives will likely cause nuisance tripping of the GFCIs.

IMHO safety for hard wired outlets is better provided by some sort of assured EGC system than by a class A GFCI. Perhaps some sort of hybrid device which acts as a GFCI desensitized by an intact EGC, so that you tolerate high leakage if you have an intact green wire shunting that leakage away from people.

Jon
Click to expand...
Not just that, but I have been coming across the mini splits that do not have a neutral connection for the feeder, just 2 hots and a ground, but the power heads are 120V thus forcing the ground to carry neutral current and tripping the gfci.
 
On second thought, I guess I should be reading that 150 to ground to say 120 or maybe 117 to ground. I have not come across to many residential services that had any phase to ground being 150.
 
He is citing exception #2 to 210.8(F)
Exception No. 2:
GFCI protection shall not be required for listed HVAC equipment. This exception shall expire September 1, 2026.
Click to expand...
This was added per TIA 23-3 to the 2023 NEC. That TIA was accepted in August of 2022, prior to the publication of the first edition of the 2023 code.

It was also added to the 2020 code as TIA 20-19 at the same time. Note that this will show up in the electronic versions of the 2020 code even though it was not part of the original publication of the 2020 code. To be legally enforceable the TIA must be adopted using the same process that was used to adopt the code itself.

Because of the enforceability of TIAs can be an issue, Link now shows indicates TIAs added after the original publication of the code by a highlighted circle with a "T" in it at the beginning of the TIA language. There are 3 such TIAs shown in Link for the 2023 code now.

The TIA this thread is talking about was the last one that was issued prior to the publication of the first edition and is not so marked.
 
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