What Is an NRCV Form?

A small family, not one form

Where NRCC, NRCI and NRCA each span every discipline, the NRCV family is narrower, but it is not down to a single certificate. Table 2-5 of the 2025 Multifamily Compliance Manual lists it as the high-rise multifamily counterpart to the low-rise LMCV series:

• NRCV-MCH-04(a-e)-H — duct leakage testing
• NRCV-MCH-24(a,b)-H — dwelling unit air leakage diagnostic test, for building and dwelling unit enclosures
• NRCV-MCH-27-H — indoor air quality and mechanical ventilation, total vent rate method
• NRCV-MCH-32-H — local mechanical exhaust
• NRCV-PLB-21-H and NRCV-PLB-22-H — verified multifamily central hot water system distribution

That is worth stating plainly, because a project can easily need more than one of these at once — duct leakage and ventilation verification together, for example. Which ones apply depends on what the design modelled as field-verified.

Verification is not acceptance testing

Both happen after installation, and they are different things. An acceptance test (NRCA) is a functional demonstration that a system behaves as required — a control responds, an economizer changes over. A verification (NRCV) is a diagnostic measurement of the building itself.

Air leakage is measurement rather than demonstration. You pressurise the enclosure and read a number. There is no control to exercise and no sequence to observe, which is why it sits in its own family rather than among the acceptance tests.

The -H suffix, and what the letters mean

The trailing letter on a nonresidential form is a useful rule of thumb rather than an absolute rule, as the acceptance-test (NRCA) side shows:

• -A — usually a technician certified through an approved provider is required, though the Multifamily Compliance Manual's Table 2-4 names NRCA-ENV-02-A and NRCA-ENV-03-A as exceptions that do not require that certification
• -F — a field technician may perform it
• -H — every NRCV form carries -H and is a registered rater measurement, working through a provider's data registry. On the NRCA side, though, -H is not always rater-only: NRCA-MCH-20a through 20d-H and NRCA-MCH-21-H are listed as an ATT-alternative to rater field verification, meaning a certified technician may complete them instead.

Every NRCV form carries -H, and correspondingly the CEC states that NRCVs must be registered with an Energy Code Compliance (ECC) Provider. That is the same registration mechanism residential work uses, appearing on the nonresidential side.

ECC is the current name

If you know this arrangement as HERS registration, that was its name until 1 January 2026, when the field verification and diagnostic testing side of the HERS Program moved into the ECC Program. HERS Providers became ECC-Providers and HERS raters became ECC-Raters. The mechanism did not change.

The point worth taking is that registered verification is not only a residential idea. A nonresidential project with a building air leakage requirement engages a registry in exactly the way a house does.

Envelope air leakage, in practice

The test measures how much air the enclosure leaks. A leaky building undermines every other measure in the design: conditioned air escapes, unconditioned air enters, and the mechanical system compensates continuously. Sealing is cheap during construction and close to impossible afterwards, so the test's real value is that it is scheduled at all — it makes the enclosure somebody's explicit responsibility.

Common Title 24 Questions

1. What is a CF1R certificate of compliance?
2. What is a CF2R certificate of installation?
3. What is a CF3R certificate of verification?
4. What is an NRCC form?
5. What is an NRCA certificate of acceptance?
6. What is an LMCC form?

Explore NRCC, NRCI and NRCA Forms

1. What Title 24 Forms Does a Commercial Project Need?
2. What Is an NRCC Certificate of Compliance?
3. What Is an NRCA Certificate of Acceptance?
4. What Is the NRCC-PRC Form?
5. What Is an NRCC Form?

View all NRCC, NRCI and NRCA Forms guides → · Commercial Title 24 · Title 24 guide