@NorthJerseyCopper
1st-year apprentice, UA · 1 year · Bergen County, NJ
Licenses, credentials and experience are self-reported by members and not verified by Home Fixr.
1st yr out of 24. Mostly service and drain calls. Here to ask the dumb questions before I ask them on the job.
Thanks everyone, didn't expect this many replies.
For anyone wondering whether to bring up a third try: they knew. I said it before they could. Then I said what I did differently each year.
Idk about grades. Nobody asked me about mine in any of the three.
I asked the insurance half of this in another thread. Short answer was get real quotes, and it's more than you think.
I have a lot of texts from him with job addresses and times. idk if that counts for anything.
1st year in Local 24, so this is years away. idk if it's weird to ask this early. My long-term plan is to top out, get my master, and eventually run a small service shop in Bergen. Everyone says insurance is the thing that kills new shops. What kinds do you need, and roughly what does it cost? Ballpark is fine. Just planning.
Before I got into the Local I worked two years for a plumber in Garfield. All cash, every Friday. Now people keep telling me prior experience can matter later, either for credit somewhere or for a license someday. I asked him for a short letter saying what I did and when. He won't do it. Says he "doesn't do paperwork." Not angry about it, just no. idk what to do. Is it even worth chasing? Or do those two years just not exist now?
Shop just put the winter emergency list on the board and my name is on it with a journeyman starting in November. Mostly service and drain work up to now, Fair Lawn and around. Not scared exactly. idk. Curious what your first one was like, the real version. Was it the boiler, the customer, or just being tired?
UA Local 24, first year. I ranked low my first two times. Third time I got the call. I see a lot of people on here worried about their ranking, so ask me what you want. I can only tell you what happened to me. I don't know how anyone else's local runs. Between tries I worked for a service and drain shop in Fair Lawn.
1st year, UA Local 24. My shop does a lot of hot water boiler work in Bergen in the winter. Someone at school said that once the HVACR license came in, boilers became an HVAC thing and plumbers can't touch them. My foreman laughed at that. Idk who to believe. Who's allowed to do hydronic heat in NJ: plumbers, HVACR contractors, or both? Short answer is fine.