Georgia to Oklahoma: journeyman HVAC technician license reciprocity

Oklahoma issues statewide mechanical journeyman licenses through the Construction Industries Board (CIB) under the Mechanical Licensing Act. The HVAC/R Unlimited category has no size limit; HVAC/R Limited covers cooling up to 25 tons and heating up to 500,000 Btu/h per appliance; both include refrigeration, sheet metal, natural gas and related process piping, and stand-alone Refrigeration, Sheet Metal, Natural Gas Piping and Process Piping journeyman categories also exist. A new applicant needs three years (6,000 hours) of verifiable experience in the category while employed by a licensed mechanical contractor, with approved trade-school hours substituting for up to two years, pays $75 ($25 application plus $50 initial license) and passes the PSI exam with 70% ($92 per portion). CIB's rules allow written reciprocity agreements and a case-by-case exam equivalency for licensees of jurisdictions whose exam the Board has approved, but CIB publishes no list of mechanical reciprocity partners or approved jurisdictions. Journeymen must work under a licensed mechanical contractor, renew annually in their birth month, and complete six hours of continuing education every 36 months.

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.