Colorado Electrician Hours Calculator: 4,000 and 8,000
Colorado runs two hour ladders. Residential wireman is 4,000 hours, journeyman is 8,000 with 2,000 of them commercial or industrial and 288 classroom hours on top, and master has four routes of its own. Put your hours in and this gives you the day the ladder you are on is behind you.
How this was calculated
The method, and what each number rests on
Colorado licenses individual electricians and registers the contracting business behind them. What this page computes is the day the hours are behind you, and in Colorado the examination comes before the application rather than after it.
The two ladders are 4,000 and 8,000. The residential wireman asks for 4,000 hours of residential only experience earned in no less than 2 years. The journeyman asks for 8,000 hours earned in no less than 4 years, and 2,000 of those hours have to be commercial, industrial or substantially similar work earned over at least 2 years.
The 2,000 is the figure to hold on to. It appears in three official places: the Board applications page, the Board journeyman application preview and C.R.S. 12-115-110. A competitor publishes 4,000 for the same requirement, and that figure appears in no state source.
The 288 classroom hours sit on top of the work, not inside it. The Board says 288 hours of classroom education is required for all applicants with no grandfathering, and 3 CCR 710-1.7 adds that the training is in addition to any on the job requirement and cannot be counted twice. The statute places those hours in the last eight years of your experience and the rule places them in the last four, and both readings are printed here because neither is settled.
The master license has four routes, and all four are in the table below: 10,000 hours in no less than 5 years, 8,000 hours in no less than 4 years with a trade school or community college degree, 2,000 hours in no less than 1 year with a degree in electrical engineering, or 2,000 hours in no less than 1 year beyond the journeyman requirements with some of them in planning and layout and some in supervision while holding a journeyman license.
No minimum age for a license appears on the Board pages or in the statute sections read for this tool, so none is printed here. The Board does ask for documented written evidence of all in state and out of state experience, with exact employment dates, a breakdown of work by type and supervisor signatures on its affidavit of experience.
The date arithmetic is plain. Hours still to work divided by hours a week, rounded up to a whole week, added to your start date. Every week is treated the same, so overtime, layoffs and weather are yours to adjust, and nothing here says whether the Board will accept your hours.
What each one asks for
| What you are working toward | What it takes | The detail |
|---|---|---|
| Residential Wireman | 4,000 hours | 4,000 hours of residential only experience earned in no less than 2 years. No classroom hour figure is published for this one. |
| Journeyman Electrician | 8,000 hours in total, 2,000 of them commercial or industrial, plus 288 classroom hours | 8,000 hours earned in no less than 4 years, 2,000 of them commercial or industrial work over at least 2 years, plus 288 classroom hours. |
| Master Electrician | 10,000 hours | 10,000 hours of experience earned in no less than 5 years. |
| Master Electrician, from a trade school or college | 8,000 hours | 8,000 hours earned in no less than 4 years, with a trade school or community college degree in an electrical construction field. |
| Master Electrician, from an engineering degree | 2,000 hours | 2,000 hours of construction experience earned in no less than 1 year, with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. |
| Master Electrician, on top of a journeyman license | 2,000 hours | 2,000 hours of experience earned in no less than 1 year in addition to the journeyman requirements, some of it in planning and layout and some of it supervision while holding a journeyman license. The Board notes that supervision hours are not applied to the total, to prevent double credit for work done alongside supervisees. |
Questions people ask
How many hours does the Residential Wireman need?
It asks for 4,000 hours. The figure comes from the State Electrical Board applications page and C.R.S. 12-115-110.
Does anything I enter here leave my browser?
No. The arithmetic runs in the page and the numbers are saved in your own browser if you press save. They only leave the device if you use the email button, and then they go to the address you type and nowhere else.
Will the board accept the hours this page counts?
That is not a question a calculator can answer. This page works the published rule with the numbers you give it. Whether your own experience is documented well enough is a decision the board makes on the paperwork.
Why does the date move when I change the weekly hours?
Because the date is arithmetic: what you still owe divided by what you work in a week, rounded up to a whole week, added to your start date. Every week is treated the same, so overtime, layoffs and weather are yours to adjust.
Thirty free questions, timed, with the working shown
Every miss comes back with the arithmetic worked out and the code section named, so you learn the trap and not just the answer. No account.
All questions here are original. They are not actual exam questions, and no question bank can promise you a pass.
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