Oregon 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.

Oregon does not license HVAC technicians or journeymen. The Building Codes Division licenses individuals only in the electrical, plumbing, boiler, elevator and manufactured dwelling trades, and no state HVAC, mechanical or refrigeration certificate exists, so an out-of-state HVAC journeyman license has nothing to transfer to and is not needed to work as an employee of a licensed contractor. The credential most HVAC/R technicians in Oregon hold is the Limited Maintenance Electrician (LME), an electrical license that lets its holder repair and maintain existing electrical installations in operable plants, commercial buildings and institutions (no new installations or service work); it requires an approved Oregon apprenticeship or, for training earned outside Oregon, 288 classroom hours plus 4,000 on-the-job hours or 8,000 on-the-job hours, a 2-hour 28-question open-book exam and a $100 fee, and it renews every three years with 8 hours of continuing education. The LME has no reciprocity (Oregon's electrical reciprocity covers only the general journeyman and supervising licenses), so an arriving technician documents out-of-state hours and sits the LME exam. Employers doing HVAC/R maintenance also hold the division's Limited Maintenance Specialty Contractor HVAC/R (LHR) business license, and anyone handling refrigerants needs federal EPA Section 608 certification. Gas piping and boiler work fall under separate plumbing and boiler licenses.