Guides · The ladder
A total is a blunt instrument. Category minimums are a scalpel — and they cut applicants whose hours are real but one-sided.
Water distribution — the supply side: mains, services, distribution piping that brings water in. DWV — drain, waste and vent: the piping that takes water and waste away and vents the system. Fixtures — installing the fixtures themselves: water closets, lavatories, tubs, water heaters in the fixture sense your board defines. Minnesota's minimums: 2,000 water, 2,000 DWV, 1,000 fixtures, inside a 7,000-hour total.
Service-and-repair plumbers, whose work is fixture-heavy and rough-in-light. New-construction hands, whose mix leans the other way. Both can reach the total with a hole in one category — a hole that takes a deliberate rotation, arranged early, to fill.
By their definitions, not your job titles. When you log hours, log the work, not the ticket name — the log that survives an audit describes tasks in the board's vocabulary.
See your split the way the board will: the eligibility checker computes category gaps for the states that set them.
Included in the $49 PlumberLicenseCheck Kit
One payment. Yours to keep. The checkers stay free either way.
