Welding Tips and Tricks

Colorado is in the process of banning oil and gas drilling in the state. They don't call it that (SB 181) but that will be the overall effect. One of the amendments to the bill states that oil field welders must have "7000 hours of documented training".

This is not work experience this is training. I don't know of any field including brain surgery that requires 7000 hours of training.

Does this person exist? Do you live in Colorado? If you do you are about to get rich.

Just curious

Bill

That’s called an apprenticeship.
The UA apprenticeship is based on 2000 hrs a year for 5 years.

Edit
This is the same standard as most nuke plants. They require you to be a journeyman for any critical work.

discap wrote:I don't know of any field including brain surgery that requires 7000 hours of training.

Medicine training is A LOT longer.

After the MD one does a minimum of 3 years of residency; specialists usually train for 6. Duty hours were limited DOWN to 80hrs per week in the early 2000s (IIRC) and now I think they are lower still, so it’s fair to estimate 3000 hrs per year. That makes it about 9,000 minimum for generalists, or maybe 15-20,000 for specialists.

The brain surgeons from your example may do 7 or more years. Again, all of this is AFTER the MD degree.

I think you might have been off by a wide margin.


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Depends on how you count the time. The statute calls for documented training. So the question is are you "training" if you don't have direct onsite supervision or are you practicing your trade.

So my question still stands are there any weldors with 7000 hours of documented training, not work experience/practice?

As defined by the US department of labor.
https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/tool ... faq.htm#1b

In this case, training means hours worked as an apprentice welder. In Canada, welding apprenticeship is 6000 hrs (3 years) before you can write your jman exam. 7000 hours is going to work out to 3.5 years of continuous work in the trade.
Sounds like Colorado is stepping up requirements for qualified welders in the state. They haven’t lost their minds. They are ensuring they will see higher quality work getting done with this. It’s a good thing.
In the province of Alberta, the trade of welding is a required trade. This means you can not practice the trade of welding for a living unless you are a registered apprentice or a journeyman in the trade. It brings up the level of experience in the trade as well as the quality of work being done.

I live in Colorado. Family has been here since 1864. Because of this we are moving, the realtor will be here today to take pictures of the house. This will bankrupt Colorado.
They HAVE lost their minds!!!!

I suspect that this bill is being tabled for reasons of prior problems with weld quality. You would be surprised at how much clout large energy companies have within politics.
Higher trade qualifications are usually the result of government looking for ways to improve public safety perceptions. This will not bankrupt Colorado. Lol. Nor will it stop oil and gas exploration. Companies will get qualified welders any way they have to.
If you have 3.5 years (7000 hrs) of experience in the trade, what are you afraid of?

Here’s another way to look at it.
If this does go through in Colorado, neighbouring states with lower qualification standards for welders will be looking at the Colorado welders as a group of workers that have a higher standard of qualification in the trade. A more elite group of welders so to speak. Unless your afraid of something, why would you not want to become a part of that?

Without getting into the politics (which is forbidden). This is the tip of the iceberg.

tungstendipper wrote:I live in Colorado. Family has been here since 1864. Because of this we are moving...

Dang, I didn’t take your THAT old. You must begin welding when Washington was just a Lt.

cj737 wrote:

tungstendipper wrote:I live in Colorado. Family has been here since 1864. Because of this we are moving...

Dang, I didn’t take your THAT old. You must begin welding when Washington was just a Lt.

Don't worry I still buy green bananas!

cj737 wrote:

tungstendipper wrote:I live in Colorado. Family has been here since 1864. Because of this we are moving...

Dang, I didn’t take your THAT old. You must begin welding when Washington was just a Lt.

When welding involved a pile of coal.

These requirements are plainly due to money. Clarification. States / and commonly large corporations will institute rules like this for one simple reason. It gives them a plausible deniability of responsibility in the even of a catastrophic failure. The up front cost added to a project in order to meet the bar, is more palatable to taxpayers or shareholders then the cost of law suits to settle on damages. If they up the requirements on the people doing the work, and essentially the companies doing the work, then they spread out the liability.

In Australia, apprenticeships are a big part of the trade. 4 Years. Although intake numbers haven't been too good lately. We also have a thing called Recognised Prior Learning. That means that skills already obtained over a period of time will be taken into account when undertaking further training. Meaning that if you can prove your knowledge on a specific topic you don't have to spend time doing that part of a course you may sign up for.

To the best of my knowledge there are no apprenticeship programs in the US like the ones mentioned in Canada and Aus. This move by the legislature is not due to protectionism and is only one of the roadblocks.

This is politics pure and simple. Despite the fact that the voters resoundingly voted down an attempt to ban drilling, the politicians decided they would do it anyway.

discap wrote:To the best of my knowledge there are no apprenticeship programs in the US like the ones mentioned in Canada and Aus. This move by the legislature is not due to protectionism and is only one of the roadblocks.

This is politics pure and simple. Despite the fact that the voters resoundingly voted down an attempt to ban drilling, the politicians decided they would do it anyway.

EXACTLY!!!

The UA in Canada uses pretty much the same standards as the US. Even here you can apply for credit for previous experience once your in the program. They also organize in people who then may only need a year or so to prove they meet the requirements to be a full fledged journeyman.

It’s not a ban it’s a benchmark.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ua+loca ... te=lrl:xpd

Here are 3 local unions in Colorado that will be turning out qualified candidates.

As code quality welders, we have always had to jump through hoops to go to work. Certification tests etc. I wrote my Canadian red seal interprovincial journeyman exam a number of years ago. Why? Because I had to to go to work, not because I wanted to, not because I thought it was right, not because I agreed with it or disagreed with it. To provide for my family, that’s what I had to do. It was just another hoop I had to jump through. Today, I’m so glad I did that.
If your scared to jump through hoops or loops when your a welder, it’s time to take up another trade. Because jumping through hoops to go to work never ends when your a code quality welder like an oil and gas welder is.

snoeproe wrote:As code quality welders, we have always had to jump through hoops to go to work. Certification tests etc. I wrote my Canadian red seal interprovincial journeyman exam a number of years ago. Why? Because I had to to go to work, not because I wanted to, not because I thought it was right, not because I agreed with it or disagreed with it. To provide for my family, that’s what I had to do. It was just another hoop I had to jump through. Today, I’m so glad I did that.
If your scared to jump through hoops or loops when your a welder, it’s time to take up another trade. Because jumping through hoops to go to work never ends when your a code quality welder like an oil and gas welder is.

Same here! But a bit south of Canada.