Georgia to Idaho: journeyman HVAC technician license reciprocity

Idaho issues a statewide HVAC Journeyman certificate of competency through the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Board at the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL); a journeyman works in the employ and under the direction of a licensed HVAC contractor. A new applicant pays a $35 application fee and qualifies either by completing 576 hours of instruction at a board-approved apprenticeship program plus 8,000 hours of supervised installation work while registered as an Idaho apprentice, or by documenting 16,000 hours of supervised HVAC installation work, and in both cases must pass the PSI-administered journeyman exam ($75) within a year of applying; the license costs $150 and renews for $75 every three years. DOPL also issues Specialty Journeyman and Limited Heating Specialty Journeyman certificates for hearth appliances, oil furnaces and gas piping. The HVAC board's FAQ states that Idaho has no reciprocal licensing agreement for HVAC. An out-of-state journeyman can instead use Idaho's universal licensure statute (Idaho Code 67-9409), under which the board must license a person holding a current, unrestricted license elsewhere who demonstrates competency, but may still require the Idaho exam; the HVAC application form itself offers no endorsement box, so applicants should contact DOPL before filing. EPA Section 608 certification is required nationwide to handle refrigerants.

Georgia does not issue a journeyman HVAC, HVAC technician or installer license. The Construction Industry Licensing Board's Division of Conditioned Air Contractors licenses only conditioned air contractors (Class I Restricted and Class II Non-Restricted); the Board's licensing rules create master and journeyman licenses for plumbers (Rule 121-3-.02) but no journeyman category for conditioned air (Rule 121-3-.04), the reciprocity rule's list of licenses has no such credential, and neither the Board's home page, its how-to guide nor its FAQ offers any individual credential below contractor. HVAC technicians who are not contractors work as employees of a company whose qualifying licensee 'must be regularly connected with the business', with no personal state license. An out-of-state journeyman or technician license therefore has nothing to transfer to in Georgia and is neither required nor recognized for employment; the one place it helps is on the road to a contractor license, because the Board's application records employment under licensed employers (Georgia or otherwise) toward the four years (Class I) or five years (Class II) of lead-mechanic, service-technician and supervisory experience required under Rule 121-3-.04. EPA Section 608 certification (Type II or higher, as the Board requires of contractor applicants) is federal and applies to every technician handling refrigerants.