What Is an NRCV Form?
The nonresidential Certificate of Verification. It is the smallest family in the set — for 2025 it contains a single form, NRCV-MCH-24-H, covering building air leakage diagnostic testing, and it must be registered with an ECC Provider.
A family of one
Where NRCC, NRCI and NRCA each span every discipline, the NRCV family for 2025 contains one form and sits in mechanical only: NRCV-MCH-24-H, Building Air Leakage Diagnostic Test — Building Enclosures and Dwelling Unit Enclosures.
That is worth stating plainly, because the existence of a four-letter family invites the assumption of a full set. If someone asks which NRCV forms your project needs, the answer is either this one or none.
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 says who may complete it, and by now the set is legible:
- -A — a technician certified through an approved provider is required
- -F — a field technician may perform it
- -H — a registered rater, working through a provider's data registry
NRCV-MCH-24-H 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.