supervision of apprentices

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Renod120105

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I am an apprentice electrician in oregon, so if there is anyone from oregon familiar with Oregon laws regarding electrical work , hopefully you can help me!

One question I have never got a satisfactory answer to is the supervision of apprentices. What exactly are the rules about supervision, how long they can be left alone, working alone and etc.? If anyone, especially oregon inspectors, can help, I would appreciate it.

Renod120105
 
Call your local building dept.What they tell you and whats done are likely not the same.As a crew leader i judge each man as to how far i trust his work.And i do check.
 
as long as the ratio of journy man to apprentice is ok and you are on the same job site you can work by yourself we leave are appretices by them self a lot on big jobs if they are competent and know what ther doing

do you think that you are not watched close enough or watched to much?
 
stu13 said:
as long as the ratio of journy man to apprentice is ok and you are on the same job site you can work by yourself we leave are appretices by them self a lot on big jobs if they are competent and know what ther doing
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Stu welcome to the forum.

Are you from Oregon?

The thing is licensing rules are not National they are local. I am licensed in Connecticut and any apprentice that works for me has to be either in sight or earshot of me. I can not leave them alone anytime any where.
 
iwire said:
I am licensed in Connecticut and any apprentice that works for me has to be either in sight or earshot of me. I can not leave them alone anytime any where.
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I thought it was in sight and in earshot. I'll have to look that up. I can see pretty far :)
 
throw them to the dogs

throw them to the dogs

just kidding.Although legal in Alabama I rarely leave them alone unless they are doing simple tasks such as assembling light fixtures.As they get a little further on I will mark up a small job for box brackets on studs and turn them loose.I try to leave them about 6 hours work,I instruct them that when they get all the boxes or brackets mounted they are to pick up the prints and see if they can figure out why this box went here and at that height they seem to pick up on plan reading better this way
 
iwire said:
Stu welcome to the forum.

Are you from Oregon?

The thing is licensing rules are not National they are local. I am licensed in Connecticut and any apprentice that works for me has to be either in sight or earshot of me. I can not leave them alone anytime any where.
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Bob, every CE class I went to spelled it out pretty good, they have to be within sight...

DOH!, read your post wrong... haha, never mind...
 
Not complaining or agreeing, where I'm at the guy with the license doesn't even have to be in the same county or ever even visit the jobsite- There is no such thing as "journeymen", only unlimited or >200A restricted licenses.:-? Edit: the difference in the to licenses is 15 more questions on the masters test-mainly on transformers.
 
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This is an interesting topic. Utah use to require an apprentice to be within "shouting distance" (no real definition of distance that I can rember) of their journeyman. But recently a challange was made to this rule in regards to cellphones. So now according to the state licensing inspector, as long as a journeyman is within cellphone contact of an apprentice the apprentice is considered "supervised".:rolleyes:

Chris
 
In Arizona if you make $18.00 an hour or more, then you are a journeyman

and you are not to yell at or watch others making less.

OK, the second part is not true.
 
I did't have a chance to look up the exact wording for CT's requirements yet.

Connecticut laws are a bit strange to me. If you have an E1 Contractors license, you can hire 1 Apprentice. If you then hire 1 E2 Journeyperson, you can have a 2nd apprentice. After that, you can only hire Apprentices on a 3 to 1 ratio (3 E2's to 1 Apprentice). That is only the law for hiring. You can have a 1 to 1 ratio on the job. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you are allowed 1:1 on each individual job, you should be able to hire at the same ratio.
 
I'd like to think we could leave them alone and have them perform work they have been instructed to do adequately. BUT we never leave them alone.

I think a lot of my ability came from the fact I was left alone a lot as a apprentice, the large company I worked for went from 325 to 12 electricians due to cheating the IRS. We were split up I was left to trouble shoot and perform punch out on 360 apartments, I learned a lot quickly regarding trouble shooting and fishing in missing wiring.

I hope the OP is inquisitive not complaining.
 
In PA, in the jurisdictions which require licensing, the licensed person must be bodily present on the same jobsite as the unlicensed electricians working under him. He could just sit in a lawn chair and watch them, if he wanted to, and it would be a legal job. Realistically, there are boatloads of jobs on which there are no licensed people present. Nothing is done to really enforce that, unless somebody drops a dime on the job. I sometimes do when it was a job I bid on and lost.
 
kpepin said:
Connecticut laws are a bit strange to me. If you have an E1 Contractors license, you can hire 1 Apprentice. If you then hire 1 E2 Journeyperson, you can have a 2nd apprentice. After that, you can only hire Apprentices on a 3 to 1 ratio (3 E2's to 1 Apprentice). That is only the law for hiring. You can have a 1 to 1 ratio on the job. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you are allowed 1:1 on each individual job, you should be able to hire at the same ratio.
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I don't think they're strange at all. I think the intent of the law is quite clear: they don't want companies and large jobs to be loaded up with apprentices. They're assuming that apprentices will rightly require more supervision and be lacking in skills and training, so they are putting restrictions on how many you can hire.
 
iwire said:
You know now I am not sure, if you look it up will you post back? :smile:
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What is your take on MA requirements for this. I know the 1 to 1 rule but was curious as to this other stuff, earshot and within sight. That's <50' right?:grin: :smile:

Tom
 
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