Guides → The facility map placard

The facility map placard

690.56 is the placard a firefighter reads from the street. It is our largest label family by a wide margin — 704 products map to it — and the wording changed in 2017.

The three clauses

Clause	Applies to	What it requires
690.56(A)	Stand-alone, off-grid PV	A permanent plaque or directory on the building exterior, at a readily visible location, giving the location of the system disconnecting means.
690.56(B)	Utility service and PV	A plaque or directory giving the location of the service disconnecting means and the PV disconnecting means. From 2017 this defers to 705.10.
690.56(C)	PV with rapid shutdown	In 2014, a plaque stating exactly PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM EQUIPPED WITH RAPID SHUTDOWN, reflective. From 2017 it expands into (C)(1) to (C)(3).

Why the site plan is drawn, not written

690.56(B) asks for the location of the disconnecting means. On a simple house a sentence does it. On anything with more than one array, a sub-panel, or a disconnect that is not where a firefighter would expect, a diagram is the only thing that answers the question being asked.

That is what the facility map placard is: a plan of the building with the disconnects marked, printed to survive outdoors.

Getting one made

Upload the plan set and the map is drawn from it — the roof outline, the array, the disconnect positions and the service equipment. Where the drawing is unclear, the design request route on the project lets you say what to change rather than redraw it yourself.

Where it goes

Outside, readily visible, permanent. "Readily visible" is the authority's judgement, and it is one of the things authorities are most willing to be specific about — several publish exactly where they want it.

Where an authority publishes its own placard wording, a standard set will not pass. That is not a general caution: it is recorded per authority in the AHJ database, because the ones that do are specific about it.

For Kev. Clause content and the 2014 exact wording are from NecSignageRule; the 704 figure is from NecSkuMapping. "Why the site plan is drawn, not written" is my argument, not the code's — it is the part most worth you rewriting in your own voice, because it is the commercial case for the product.