Texas Electrician ExamTexas journeyman & master

Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

The damage rule is at 300.6 now, and the old number still answers

Article 300 shifted this cycle. The rule you want moved two sections down, and the number you remember now carries text that looks close enough to waste a minute on.

On this page
  1. The address, first, because it costs the most
  2. What actually moved, and what did not
  3. How to confirm an address without leaving the book
  4. What is actually in the section
  5. The answer that beats adding protection
  6. What counts as subject to physical damage
  7. Two neighbors that answer different questions
  8. What to do to your book before test day
  9. What this page cites

The address, first, because it costs the most

Protection against physical damage for Chapter 3 wiring methods is NEC 300.6 in the 2026 edition. It was 300.4 in the book you studied from.

That alone would be a cheap correction. The expensive part is what sits at the old number now. NEC 300.4 in the 2026 book is Limitations, the section that caps a wiring method by voltage and by temperature, and this cycle it picked up a third subsection headed Damaged Conductors and Wiring Methods, which calls for conductors and wiring methods that are no longer suitable for use, through overheating, fire, corrosive influences or water, to be replaced (NEC 300.4(C)).

Read that trap slowly, because it got worse in 2026 rather than better. The number you remember is not vacant and it is not off topic. It is a section about damage, in the article you wanted, under a subsection heading with the word damaged in it. Nothing on the page tells you that you are in the wrong place.

A number that is simply empty costs you a few seconds and tells you loudly that something changed. A number that answers a neighboring question costs you the time to read it, decide it does not govern, doubt that decision, read it again, and start the lookup over. On a knowledge item pitched at a little over two minutes, that is the item.

And the two are genuinely different rules. NEC 300.6 is about keeping damage from happening to a wiring method that is fine. NEC 300.4(C) is about what you do with one that is already ruined. A scenario describing a cable that has been cooked or flooded is answered from the second. A scenario describing a cable about to meet a drywall screw is answered from the first.

What actually moved, and what did not

The 2026 edition rewrote how the chapters relate to each other, and the old rule about Chapter 8 is gone Chapters one through four apply generally to all electrical installations. Chapters five through eight may supplement or modify the requirements in chapters one through eight. Chapter nine is the tables, applicable as referenced. The informative annexes are not requirements. In earlier editions chapter eight stood apart and was not subject to the other chapters unless a requirement was specifically referenced in it. That carve out is not in the 2026 wording, and the chapter titles changed from special to specific at the same time. CHAPTERS 1–4 apply generally to all electrical installations may supplement or modify chapters 1 through 8 CHAPTERS 5 – 8 specific occupancies and locations · specific equipment specific conditions and systems · communications systems CHAPTER 9 tables, applicable as referenced ANNEXES A – L not part of the requirements CHANGED IN 2026: chapter 8 used to stand outside this stack. it was not subject to the other chapters unless something in it said so. that carve out is gone, and the chapter titles say specific now, not special.
Deciding which layer a question lives in is most of the work on an open book exam. In 2026 the layers themselves changed. Quoting the arrangement described in NEC 90.3, 2026 edition. Compare it with the edition on your own bench.

The 2026 edition ran a common template through the book. Listing requirements were pulled to the second section of an article and reconditioned equipment to the third. Where those slots were already occupied, the sections behind them slid down.

Article 300 is the clean case. Everything from the old second section on dropped by two. Limitations went from 300.2 to 300.4. Physical damage went from 300.4 to 300.6. Underground installations went from 300.5 to 300.7. Securing and supporting went from 300.11 to 300.13. The length of free conductors went from 300.14 to 300.16, and boxes, conduit bodies or fittings where required went from 300.15 to 300.17.

Six moves, one offset, and it is tempting to turn that into a rule for the whole book. Do not. The book falsifies it in two directions at once.

So the offset is three, or two, or nothing, depending on which article you are in, and inside Article 314 it changes partway down the article. There is no number to add. A candidate who adds two and finds real text at the answer has no way to tell whether the result is one section short or two sections long, which is worse than finding nothing at all.

What did hold is the article number. The wiring method articles kept theirs this cycle: 300, 312, 314, 330, 334, 336, 344 and 392 all still mean what they meant in the 2023 book. So the reliable move is to go to the article you already know by number, then read down its section titles until you hit the one you want. That is a fifteen second job on an article you have tabbed, and unlike an offset it cannot put you in the wrong section with a straight face.

How to confirm an address without leaving the book

The code cross-references itself constantly, and a cross-reference printed in the 2026 edition is a current address whether or not your memory is.

A worked example. The box fill rules explain how to count a long loop of unbroken conductor by comparing it against the minimum length of free conductor at a box. In the 2026 book that comparison points at 300.16 (NEC 314.16). Turn to 300.16 and you are reading the free conductor rule, which was 300.14 in the edition before this one.

A second one, from a different article, which is what makes it worth doing. The cable entry rule for cabinets and cutout boxes lets cables in a complete raceway system off the hook, and the 2026 text sends you to 300.14 for what a complete raceway system means (NEC 312.8). That rule was 300.12 last edition. Two cross-references, written by two different panels, both landing two numbers above the 2023 address, and both printed inside the book on your desk.

The habit generalizes even though the offset does not. When you are unsure whether a number in your memory is current, find something in the 2026 book that cites it and read where the citation lands. That is evidence from the same document your paper is written against, which is better than any published summary, including this page.

Build the habit now rather than on test day. When you land on a section, read its title before you read its text. Half the wasted minutes in the exam room come from reading a paragraph carefully without ever checking the heading above it.

What is actually in the section

Where a wiring method is subject to physical damage, it gets protected. That opening sentence is short and general and it is not where the items come from.

Most of the section is specific carpentry, and that is the testable part.

One of those changed this cycle rather than merely moving. The roof decking rule used to be written around metal corrugated decking. In the 2026 book the clearance reaches all roof decking, and the rule is written about wiring methods and materials rather than about cables, raceways and boxes (NEC 300.6(E)). If your notes on roof decking say corrugated, they are describing a narrower rule than the one you will be tested on.

Notice the pattern under that list. The section is organized by what the wiring passes through, not by which wiring method it is. So an item that names a cable type is not necessarily sending you to the cable article. If the scenario turns on a stud, a joist, a plate or a deck, you are in Article 300.

The answer that beats adding protection

Here is the trap on top of the trap. A scenario describes a run somewhere it will get hit, and among the options are two that both sound like code: add protection of some named kind, or use a different method entirely.

The general damage rule is not the only rule in play. Method articles carry their own restrictions, and several of them keep a method out of locations subject to physical damage outright. Where an article says the method does not belong there, adding a plate does not rescue it.

So read the scenario for two things rather than one. What protection would fix it, and whether this method was permitted in that location to begin with. The uses-not-permitted list in the method article settles the second question, and it is the list candidates skip.

What counts as subject to physical damage

The code does not define it with a measurement, and that unsettles people who want a number. It is a judgment about the location, made by the person inspecting it.

The exam works around that by describing cases nobody argues about. A run at bumper height in a parking garage. A wall in a warehouse aisle where pallets get moved. Exposed work in a shop where material is stacked. If an item wanted you to weigh a marginal case it would have no defensible key, so it will not.

What it can test is what you do about it once the condition is established, which puts you back in the section and back in the method article.

Two neighbors that answer different questions

Article 300 also carries protection against corrosion and deterioration, which is a chemical problem where this is a mechanical one. An item will happily describe a damp corrosive location to see which of the two you reach for. Watch the number on that one especially: in the 2023 book, 300.6 was the corrosion section. In the 2026 book 300.6 is the damage section. If the number 300.6 makes you think corrosion, your memory is exactly one edition old.

And the grounding electrode conductor has its own damage rule inside Article 250 rather than borrowing this one. It turns on the size of the conductor and on whether it is exposed to physical damage, which is a different test from anything in Article 300, and the protective methods it names are its own (NEC 250.64(B)). A scenario about a grounding electrode conductor running down an exterior wall is not answered from here.

What to do to your book before test day

  1. Open the 2026 book at Article 300 and read the section titles in order, ignoring the text. It takes about a minute and it resets the map you are carrying.
  2. Anywhere you have a tab reading 300.4 for damage, move it to 300.6 and relabel it. A tab that points at plausible wrong text is worse than no tab, and 300.4 is now plausible wrong text with the word damaged in its subsection heading.
  3. Do the same audit on Article 312 and Article 314 while you are there, and notice that the three articles moved by three, by two and by nothing. That is the point: there is no offset to carry in your head.
  4. Read the section on physical damage all the way through once, slowly, since most of it is short paragraphs about framing that you will otherwise meet for the first time under a clock.
  5. Then read the uses-not-permitted list in the method articles you use most, because that is the list that overrules this section.

Texas examinations reference the 2026 edition from 1 September 2026 (16 TAC 73.100), which means the address on this page is the one your paper is written against and the address in your memory probably is not.

What this page cites

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