Journeyman License - "Related field experience" for years required in field?

[Lock Nut]

Journeyman License - "Related field experience" for years required in field?

Hello all. In regards to the Journeyman Electrician Licensure prerequesites, I'm wondering if there's any loopholes/workarounds for the time requirements for field experience? I've worked 8 years at a small business, doing what "could" be considered a related field.

Our company did Telephone/Telecommunications, so I've got plenty of experience doing low voltage, locating/tracing, underground, aerial, operating machinery all the way from bucket trucks, boom/scissor lifts, trenchers, forklifts (lol), you name it. Even backhoes/tractors/front end loaders (I grew up on a farm.)

Guess my question is, would any of this be applicable for the time required? The master electrician who owns the electrical company that I currently work for said they may be more interested in your actual test score than concrete proof/confirmation that you've fully completed the 4 required years. Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[Coppersmith]

Hello all. In regards to the Journeyman Electrician Licensure prerequesites, I'm wondering if there's any loopholes/workarounds for the time requirements for field experience? I've worked 8 years at a small business, doing what "could" be considered a related field.

Our company did Telephone/Telecommunications, so I've got plenty of experience doing low voltage, locating/tracing, underground, aerial, operating machinery all the way from bucket trucks, boom/scissor lifts, trenchers, forklifts (lol), you name it. Even backhoes/tractors/front end loaders (I grew up on a farm.)

Guess my question is, would any of this be applicable for the time required? The master electrician who owns the electrical company that I currently work for said they may be more interested in your actual test score than concrete proof/confirmation that you've fully completed the 4 required years. Any thoughts? Thanks

Journeymen are expected to know what they are doing. They are trusted with their own lives, the lives of the people who work with them, and the client's lives. The reason the experience prerequisites are there are to keep you from killing somebody through inexperience. Don't try and shortcut it. The life you save my be your own.

 

[ramsy]

Hello all. In regards to the Journeyman Electrician Licensure prerequesites, I'm wondering if there's any loopholes/workarounds for the time requirements for field experience?

You are better off as a lineman, which regularly use heavy equipment, Class A drivers, and bucket truck operators.

Landing Public Works projects and large commercial jobs, where equipment operating experience is a keeper, is less likely with inside wiring. If a shop needs a JW with those skills they won't kick you around as much. If unusual certifications for equipment are needed, you are more likely to be a "shop rocket", first hired, and last laid-off between projects.

Most inside-wiring journeymen sit for months subsisting on unemployment between projects. For State licensing, you must wait for work-experience signatures based on qualified employer hours, not calendar hours of 40hrs x 52weeks per year. JW's can wait on the books 10-years for ~8000 hrs of employer signatures, before testing in my State for the C10 (Electrical Contractor license), or the equivalent billable hours in invoices as an independent contractor, with a 2000 hour credit for any college diploma.

On the other hand, with a constant shortage of outside lineman, always in demand, and usually fully employed, State-Contractor licensing is not the only light at the end of the tunnel. A livelihood is possible for linemen, since apprentices don't compete for hours with journeymen, Groundmen dig holes for telephone poles. Lineman labor contracts don't mess with overtime either, its either straight time, or double time after 8hrs.