North Dakota licenses its Master Plumber through an examination the North Dakota State Plumbing Board administers itself, in four parts over five hours, on the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code. The passing grade for a master plumber is 80 percent. The PassProfessor North Dakota Master Plumber program prepares candidates for that sitting, and this guide sets out the credential, the route, and the sitting in full.
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The credential at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | North Dakota Master Plumber |
| Authority | North Dakota State Plumbing Board, under North Dakota Century Code chapter 43-18 and North Dakota Administrative Code Title 62 |
| Administrator | Board-administered examination — no testing vendor exists for this credential; no vendor bulletin exists |
| Code tested | 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code — the 2018 Uniform Plumbing Code chapters and appendices as adopted by North Dakota; tested edition equals adopted edition |
| Examination structure | 4 parts in 5 hours; Part 1 is 100 multiple-choice questions, closed book; Parts 2, 3, and 4 are open book — 40 completion questions, a water pipe sizing completion, and a drain, waste and vent with fixture units completion |
| Passing standard | 80 percent — the passing grade for a master plumber under NDAC 62-02-01-03 |
| Drawing and sizing work | The governing rule requires drawings on which the applicant draws all stacks, wastes, and vents and inserts the minimum pipe sizes; Parts 3 and 4 are sizing completion work |
| Hands-on practical | None — no hands-on pipe-joining practical is part of this examination |
| Retake | A waiting period of at least six months applies after a failed examination |
| Fees (state fees) | Application $50; examination $50; Master Plumber license $200; renewal $200 |
| Eligibility gate | Age 21 or older, with two years (3,400 hours) of experience as a licensed journeyman plumber |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the North Dakota State Plumbing Board |
North Dakota’s master credential repays slow reading, because three of its features run against the assumptions candidates import from other states. The examination is run by the Board itself, with no vendor in the system at all. The passing grade is 80 percent, a full ten points above the journeyman grade in the same rule. And the examination is only partly a question paper: alongside its closed-book multiple-choice part and its open-book completion questions, it requires sizing work on drawings — the applied judgement by which a master in charge actually earns the title. This guide follows those three threads through the whole route, from the apprentice years that feed the master gate to the annual renewal that follows licensure. The companion North Dakota Master Plumber Exam Preparation page gives the program in one view; this guide is the detailed companion.
What the master license is, and what it is not
The statute defines a master plumber as a person skilled in the planning, supervision, and the practical installation, alteration, and repair of plumbing, and familiar with the laws, rules, and regulations governing the same. Each element is examined, in substance, somewhere in the route. Planning and supervision are the tier’s distinguishing work; practical installation carries forward the journeyman’s proved competence; and familiarity with laws, rules, and regulations is not decoration — the master operates inside North Dakota Century Code chapter 43-18, the licensure rules in NDAC Title 62, article 62-02, chapter 62-02-01, and the code adoption in article 62-03.1, and the master in charge is the person an inspector, a customer, or the Board will hold to those texts.
What the license is not is equally clarifying. It is not a firm license: North Dakota issues no separate plumbing-contractor license in this chapter, and the Board’s plumber classes are master plumber, journeyman plumber, and plumber’s apprentice, each registered and licensed. A business exists in this system through a person — no person, firm, corporation, or limited liability company may engage in the business of installing plumbing in a location having a public waterworks or sewerage system unless at all times a registered and licensed master plumber, responsible for the proper installation, is in charge of the work. The single stated exception — cities under 1,000 population and all rural areas, where a licensed journeyman may engage in the business — proves the rule by naming the only geography where the requirement relaxes.
Two neighbouring families should not be confused with this tier. Sewer-and-water and water-conditioning licenses are separate Board families, under their own chapters, with their own examinations; holding the master license is not holding those licenses. Within the plumber classes, the licenses can overlap in one person’s hands: a master and a journeyman license may be held by the same person, and a master holder may be granted a journeyman license without the journeyman fee.
The route, step by step
Step one — build the record the gate requires. The master gate is licensed journeyman experience: two years, stated as 3,400 hours, as a journeyman plumber licensed by North Dakota or by another state that has a state licensing law, held by an applicant aged at least twenty-one. Behind it stands the journeyman’s own route — four years as an apprentice under a licensed master plumber, at least 1,900 hours a year and 7,600 hours in total, beginning with apprentice registration from age eighteen within thirty days of starting employment. Count years the rule’s way, in licensed status and in hours, and assemble the evidence before applying: no applicant may take the master examination until the Board has been furnished satisfactory evidence of sufficient practical experience.
Step two — apply, and respect the application’s clock. The application fee is $50. Candidates must hold a current North Dakota license or have submitted an application to be eligible at all, and applications expire and are canceled six months from approval if the applicant fails to appear. That application window is a different clock from the six-month retest wait below: one governs how long an approval lasts before a first sitting, the other how long a failed candidate waits before a second.
Step three — sit the Board’s examination. The Board holds examinations at the time and place it prescribes, with sittings in Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, and Fargo. Bismarck sittings run from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. — the examination’s five-hour shape visible in the Board’s own timetable. The examination fee is $50, one examination only for each fee paid. Candidates bring the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code, a calculator, and a photo ID. Cell phones may not be used during the examination.
Step four — meet the master standard. The passing grade is 80 percent. The section below covers what happens at and below that line, including a failed applicant’s review and appeal rights.
Step five — license, and step into the master-in-charge role. On passing, the license fee is $200. The license then runs on the annual cycle described in the holding section, and the holder takes on the supervision and responsibility the examination was designed to certify.
The four parts in full
No published content outline, blueprint, or per-topic weighting exists for this examination, and this guide invents none. What is published — the part structure, the book status of each part, and the rule’s description of the examination — is detailed enough to organise serious preparation, and it is set out here without addition.
Part 1: 100 multiple-choice questions, closed book
Part 1 contains 100 multiple-choice questions, taken closed book. The governing rule describes the examination as answering questions pertaining to the basic principles of plumbing and the plumbing code, and Part 1 is where that description lands at full weight: definitions, requirements, prohibitions, sizing principles, and the code’s reasoning, all answered from the candidate’s own command of the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code. There is no page to turn to. Preparation is therefore retrieval preparation — unprompted recall built across the whole adopted code, including which chapters and appendices North Dakota adopted and which it did not, so that recall itself is North Dakota recall rather than unamended model-code recall.
Part 2: 40 completion questions, open book
Part 2 contains 40 completion questions, taken open book. Completion questions differ from multiple-choice questions in a way candidates underestimate: there are no options to recognise, eliminate, or guess between. The candidate supplies the answer — the term, the value, the requirement — with the code open as a working tool. The skill examined is accurate production supported by efficient reference use. A candidate who has only ever practised by choosing among options has not practised this part.
Part 3: water pipe sizing completion, open book
Part 3 is a water pipe sizing completion, taken open book. Water sizing is the master-tier skill in its purest examination form: demand, fixture units, developed length, pressure, and the code’s sizing method, worked through to sizes that must be right, not approximately right. The master in charge will size water distribution for real buildings, where an undersized run is a callback and an oversized run is a cost the customer carries for the life of the system. Part 3 examines whether the candidate can produce that work under examination conditions, with the code open and the clock running.
Part 4: drain, waste and vent with fixture units completion, open book
Part 4 is a drain, waste and vent with fixture units completion, taken open book. Drainage and vent sizing is where fixture-unit reasoning, stack and branch relationships, vent protection, and minimum sizes meet in a single system — and where errors compound, because a venting decision and a drainage decision on the same drawing must agree. Part 4 examines the integrated judgement: read the system whole, assign the fixture units, and complete the sizing so the finished exercise describes a system that would drain, vent, and pass inspection.
Taken together, the four parts divide into two performances. Part 1 examines what the master holds in memory; Parts 2, 3, and 4 examine what the master can produce with the code in hand. Five hours cover the whole examination, with no per-part split published, so time management is itself part of the sitting — a candidate who has rehearsed only one performance will feel the other consuming the clock.
The drawings the rule requires — and an honest disclosure
The licensure rule describes this examination in language every master candidate should read before planning preparation. The examination covers answering questions pertaining to the basic principles of plumbing and the plumbing code, and preparing drawings on which the applicant is to draw all stacks, wastes, and vents, and to insert the minimum pipe sizes. In the Board’s published part structure, that requirement is present in the sizing completion parts — Parts 3 and 4. This guide does not assign the rule’s drawing language to a single numbered part, because no single published source makes that assignment; what is certain is that sizing and drawing work is inside the examination, not adjacent to it.
The disclosure follows directly. A written preparation program can teach sizing method thoroughly: fixture-unit assignment, the code’s sizing tables and procedures, worked completions checked line by line, and timed production practice. That training is the substance of Parts 3 and 4 preparation. What no written program can do is rehearse the performance away entirely — the candidate must still produce the sizing work, on the Board’s exercise, in the Board’s room, inside the shared five hours. Practise sizing as production from the start: complete the exercise, insert the sizes, check the result, and repeat under time, rather than reading sizing chapters and counting that as readiness. There is no hands-on pipe-joining practical in this examination; the applied test here is drawn and computed, not assembled.
The code in depth: adoption as a study discipline
North Dakota adopted the 2018 edition of the Uniform Plumbing Code, to be known as the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code, including chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 17; appendices A, B, C, D, E, I, and M; and chapter 62-03.1-03. Uniform Plumbing Code chapters 5 and 12 through 16 are not adopted. The Board’s instruction to candidates matches the adoption exactly: bring the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code.
Three study consequences follow. First, tested equals adopted is a genuine advantage — the code studied for the examination is the code enforced on the job, so examination preparation compounds into practice competence instead of diverging from it. Second, the advantage holds only if the candidate studies the North Dakota book rather than the unamended national text: provisions in excluded chapters are not North Dakota law, and answers built on them are wrong in the room and wrong on the job. Third, the state code article expressly does not displace local ordinances, so the master in charge works under two layers — the state code and any local ordinance where the work is performed — and examination preparation that builds the habit of asking which layer governs will serve the licensee long after the sitting. Candidates arriving from International Plumbing Code states face the additional task of learning a different model-code family; candidates arriving from other Uniform Plumbing Code states face the subtler task of unlearning editions and inclusions North Dakota did not adopt.
Passing at 80 percent, failing, and the rights that follow
The rule states the grades in one sentence: the passing grade for a master plumber shall be eighty percent, and the journeyman plumber passing grade shall be seventy percent. Master candidates should fix the correct figure early, because the incorrect one circulates widely — summaries written for the journeyman tier, and generic national material written for states with lower master standards, both carry figures that do not govern in Bismarck. Eighty percent is the standard. Whether that grade is computed across the whole examination or required part by part is not stated in the published material this guide is built on, and the guide claims neither; the preparation that answers either computation is the same — strength in every part, with no part treated as expendable.
The retest rule gives failure a long shadow. An applicant who fails to pass an examination is denied the right to take another examination until at least six months have passed from the date of the last examination, and each reexamination requires a fresh $50 examination fee. No cap on total attempts appears in the published material. Two rights soften the position without shortening it: a failed applicant has the right to review the examination to determine the reasons for failure, and the right to appeal to the Board. Used well, the review right turns the six months into a diagnostic interval — the candidate learns which performance failed, rebuilds that performance specifically, and returns for a sitting that is targeted rather than merely repeated. Used poorly, the six months pass as waiting, and the same weaknesses sit again. The guide’s study plan below is written for the first sitting, but its error-sorting method is exactly the method a reviewing candidate should apply to a failed one.
Holding the license: term, renewal, supervision, and education
The master license runs on an annual term expiring December 31, with renewal application within thirty days after expiration. Renewal is $200, and a late renewal fee of $50 applies; renew by January 31 to avoid it. A license expired one year or more need not be renewed, and the Board may require a fresh examination — a provision that converts prolonged neglect of renewal into a possible return to the examination room.
Supervision is the license’s daily substance. Not more than five apprentices may work under the immediate and personal supervision of one master or journeyman on any project. Fourth-year apprentices — three years and 5,700 hours — may work alone under the rule. The master in charge is responsible for the proper installation of the business’s work, and plumbing inspectors employed by the Board or a political subdivision must themselves be licensed as journeyman or master plumbers. Continuing education is required on a two-year cycle. No bond or insurance requirement for this license appears in the statute or rule material this guide is built on.
Reciprocity deserves careful statement. The statute gives the Board discretion to register, without examination, an applicant from a state with substantially equivalent requirements that grants North Dakota licensees similar privileges, and it names no states. The Board’s published answers name written agreements with South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana, with conditions — including that a Montana journeyman or master holder may apply only for a North Dakota journeyman license without examination. Confirm the current conditions with the Board directly rather than assume a master-to-master transfer.
A study plan for a two-performance examination
Sequence preparation by performance, not by chapter. First, the code map. Learn the adoption itself — the included chapters and appendices, the excluded chapters, and the structure of the 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code — until the book’s shape is known before its details are chased. Second, closed-book command. Build Part 1 recall deliberately: principles and code requirements retrieved without the book, in mixed order, until answers come unprompted across the whole adopted code. Third, completion fluency. Practise supplying answers rather than selecting them — terms, values, and requirements produced in writing, with the book used as the check it will be in Part 2. Fourth, sizing production. Work water sizing and drain, waste and vent sizing with fixture units as complete produced exercises — drawn, sized, and checked — first untimed for method, then timed inside shrinking allowances, until the production pace fits comfortably inside the candidate’s share of the five hours. Fifth, integrated sittings. Combine a closed-book hundred with completion and sizing work in single five-hour rehearsals, because the sitting’s real difficulty is the sequence: memory performance first, production performance after, one clock over both.
Sort every error by kind throughout. Recall failures belong to Part 1 study. Completion failures — knowing the area but not producing the exact answer — belong to Part 2 fluency work. Sizing-method failures belong to the production practice. Adoption failures — answering from an excluded chapter or an unamended provision — belong to the code-map work, and they are the most preventable errors in the entire sitting, because the adoption list is short, published, and learnable in an afternoon.
The errors this examination is built to catch
The master sitting catches tier errors first. Planning around 70 percent imports the journeyman grade into the master tier and calibrates the whole preparation ten points too low. Calling the examination open book without qualification leaves Part 1 unprepared. Studying the unamended 2018 Uniform Plumbing Code as though it were the North Dakota book carries excluded chapters into answers. Treating sizing as reading fails Parts 3 and 4, which examine produced work. Treating the sitting as reconnaissance fails against the six-month retest wait, which makes a casual first attempt the most expensive strategy available. And searching for a vendor bulletin or a published blueprint wastes the opening weeks on documents that do not exist for this credential; the Board’s own rule, schedule, and examination information are the whole authoritative description.
After the sitting: the master in charge
Passing converts the candidate into the person North Dakota’s system is built around. The master in charge plans, supervises, and answers for installation; holds the business’s licensing foundation in a personal license; supervises apprentices inside the five-to-one ceiling; and renews annually against a December 31 expiry, with continuing education running on its two-year cycle beneath it. Candidates who understand that destination will recognise the examination’s design: a closed-book test of the knowledge a master must simply have, followed by produced sizing work of exactly the kind a master must simply be able to do. The companion North Dakota Master Plumber Exam Preparation page describes the PassProfessor program built to that design.
Frequently asked questions
Who writes and administers the North Dakota Master Plumber examination?
The North Dakota State Plumbing Board administers the examination itself. No testing vendor is involved, and no vendor candidate bulletin exists for this credential.
How many parts does the master examination have, and how long is it?
Four parts, with five hours allowed to complete the examination. No per-part time split is published.
Which parts are closed book and which are open book?
Part 1 — 100 multiple-choice questions — is closed book. Parts 2, 3, and 4 are open book: 40 completion questions, a water pipe sizing completion, and a drain, waste and vent with fixture units completion.
What must candidates bring?
The 2018 North Dakota Plumbing Code, a calculator, and a photo ID. Cell phones may not be used during the examination.
What is the passing grade?
80 percent for a master plumber, under NDAC 62-02-01-03. The journeyman passing grade in the same rule is 70 percent.
What drawing work does the examination require?
The governing rule requires drawings on which the applicant draws all stacks, wastes, and vents and inserts the minimum pipe sizes. In the Board’s part structure that work is present in the sizing completion parts. A written program can train sizing method but cannot fully rehearse the performance itself.
Is there a hands-on practical examination?
No. The applied work in this examination is written and drawn sizing completion work.
What experience does the master gate require?
Two years (3,400 hours) as a journeyman plumber licensed by North Dakota or by another state that has a state licensing law, and the applicant must be at least twenty-one years of age. Satisfactory evidence of experience must be furnished to the Board before the examination may be taken.
How long does an application approval last?
Applications expire and are canceled six months from approval if the applicant fails to appear. That clock is separate from the six-month retest wait after a failure.
What happens after a failed examination?
At least six months must pass before another examination may be taken, and each reexamination requires a fresh $50 examination fee. A failed applicant may review the examination and may appeal to the Board.
What are the state fees on the master route?
Application $50, examination $50, Master Plumber license $200, renewal $200, with a $50 late renewal fee. Renew by January 31 to avoid the late fee.
How long does the master license run?
On an annual term expiring December 31, with renewal application within thirty days after expiration. A license expired one year or more need not be renewed, and the Board may require a fresh examination.
Is continuing education required?
Yes — for master and journeyman plumbers, on a two-year cycle.
Can a plumbing business operate without a master plumber?
Only within the exception for cities under 1,000 population and all rural areas, where a licensed journeyman may engage in the business. Elsewhere, a registered and licensed master plumber in charge is required at all times.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Board?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider. The Board alone licenses plumbers and administers the examination.
When does enrollment open for the PassProfessor program?
The program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address on this page and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.