Does anyone know when a master electrician is required. We had heard from somewhere that a Master Electrician is required to be on site to overlook electrical work and programs. I do not see this in any regs. Does anyone know if this seems true and where it is documented?

Need more details, what type of facility, what state?

Classically, the Master License is used in most States as a requirement to pull permits and oversee work. Some States let journyeman pull permit. For a site, where the electricians are your employees, they may not need to be licenses at all, or the employer can apply for a 'site' license.
Like Zog says, it all depends on your State and its labor laws. Most States have it set up that you have to have a Master's in order to own an electrical contracting company, or have one registered as an employee of the company.

My guess is that Scheids78 is not from the US, he used the term 'Regs'.

We are located in MI and Manufacture food products. We have our own electricians and have an electrical contractor on site full time.

Thanks to the UAW, MI has some pretty loose requirements for having a Master Electrician on site in manufacturing plants. I donlt think (Here I go thinking) you need a master there, but don't take my word, one of the other guys will jump in and give you the straight answer. If not I will find out for you.

Master/Supervising Electrician

Another term for the licensed electricianother than Master is the Supervising Electricain.
The licensed person is the one who is allowed to take out permits for electrical work, and he is the one who gets the Red Tag for non compliat work done by the electricians under his supervision. In most jurdisticutions, if job is Red Tag the contractor cannot pull new permits until the iolation has been corrected

The master electrician supervises and is responsible for all other electricians working on any construction or installation project. Only the master electrician can pull the permits with the electrical authority, and they can only be registered with one electrical contracting company at any one time.

States which have journeyman/master electricians are usually extremely pro union states.

You are right.

Got my Master Electrician's license in 1993 in Indianapolis and a couple of other Indiana cities (no statewide license). Had to take what was the Florida Block test at the time for Indy. It later became the Experior test and I think it's something else now. Some cities have their own tests. The test was no joke and did take some preparation. I bought the Tom Henry materials back then and studied. I was scheduled to take tests in Tennessee and North Carolina a year or so later which at the time were not reciprocal with the Block test/Indy license but I quit the contractor I was working for at the time and did not take them. The company was doing a lot of glass and can plant work around the country and needed licenses in several areas. In some areas you have to have a master's license or a contractors license (sometimes a separate test) in order to pull permits. There was nothing about supervising in any of the areas I was licensed in or was seeking to be licensed in that I recall. It was all about being able to pull permits. I also had to have proof of insurance and in some case a bond depending on local requirements.

A few years later I took the PE electrical exam. It was no joke either and was considerably harder than the Master Electricians exam. I know nothing about radar and radio waves and very little on digital design or electronics so I was limited to the questions that pertained to power that I could actually answer on that test. I got a 90% on the master electricians exam and passed the PE with, let's say, a bit lower score.

I don't know if it is still this way but years ago the PE pass rate was around 33%. They intentionally kept it low and "adjusted" the next exam if the pass rate was too high on the previous one. With those odds people often have to take it several times to finally pass. If you passed with "a bit lower score" congratulations! you still passed and beat the odds!

Thanks Jim. That was clear back in 1996.

I was lucky in that there was exactly 1 question on the test that was heavy into the NEC and calculations similar to the master electricians exams that I was already very familiar with and strong in. I'm pretty sure I aced that particular question. Thank goodness because I needed it to make up for the disaster that was the digital design question I attempted. It had been a long time since I'd done a thing with AND, NAND or NOR etc. and am pretty sure I floundered there. There were also a couple of per unit fault current problems in the morning and afternoon that helped me a bit.

I work with a young EE who is just a few years removed from school and is just starting his prep to take the PE. He said for the electrical exam you can now select from Computer, Electronics or Power and maybe one or two more options. Not so when I took the test. If I recall there were 12 questions in the morning and you had to select 4 of the 12 to answer and they were from all different electrical engineering fields. It was show your work, hand graded. The afternoon was also 12 questions, select 4 and they were all 10 part multiple choice for each of the 4 you selected for a total of 40 questions, I think. That was a long time ago. The problem with the multiple choice was the problems built on one another so if you messed up early on you were hosed for the remaining 7, 8 or 9 questions left in the problem.

He also told me when he took the FE (EIT) exam he was able to select the electrical FE exam which only had electrical engineering questions on it. What? When I took the EIT exam in 1991 or 92 (can't remember now) it was on all disciplines. Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Nuclear, Aero, Materials, Structures - everything.

Augh! Now I will have nightmares tonight.

When I took the PE test, there were 8 problems in the morning and 8 in the afternoon. You picked 4 for each so a 50-50 chance of even having anything you know. Sometime shorty after they expanded to 12 which was better but as you know, it's still a tough exam. There were a few problems that I know rather well from being a power guy - Back then the exam heavily emphasized electric utility type problems. But even those were not really practical.

I recall one that was a relay/current transformer saturation problem which is not difficult if you have solved one before - even once. But this one did not have a saturation curve. After a while, I realized the 2 random equations that were provided were of the 2 different lines that when aligned together made up a pseudo saturation curve. Got that one right but about blew it just based on the way it was set up. But there were a limited number of power problems and I found myself fumbling with op amps etc.

I did not take the EIT back in college like most of my friends did (big mistake on my part) so 4 years out of school, I am digging up chemistry books, thermo, statics etc. thinking, whoa! at one time I knew this. Now it's all "ancient" history.

I understand the multiple choice format was for easier grading and less disputes. Back in the day, people would challenge their score if they failed. pointing out maybe a typo in their hand written answer and arguing. Now if the answer is "B" and you select "C" it is wrong. Period.

Me too! That exam is why I make sure I get my required CEu's/PDH's done early and pay the renewal fees on the first day I'm able to every 2 years in the states I'm licensed in.

I never want to go through that process again.