The Texas contractor exam blog

Where should you start if your Texas exam is coming up?

Three things trip up most Texas candidates, and none of them is a lack of trade knowledge. The first is the clock. The electrician exams are open book, and the people who run out of time are the ones who look up answers they should already know roughly where to find. The journeyman exam alone is 240 minutes across two portions, so read the NEC table of contents until you can place any topic in its article, and drill the index with a timer.

The second is the code year. Texas switched its electrical exams to the 2026 NEC on September 1, 2026, and the book you bring must match. The third is the rules on what goes in the book: highlighting and notes made beforehand are fine, but PSI only allows the publisher's permanent tabs. Plumbing is different again, because the Texas plumbing written exams are closed book. The posts here link to the matching license pages, where every package ships from our fulfillment center, 1 Exam Prep.

What does this blog cover?

Study strategy. How to split six to eight weeks between the code book, the calculations and timed practice; how to keep an error log that points at sections instead of vague topics; and what to do in the last 3 days. Every plan assumes about 90 minutes an evening, because most readers work full days.

Using the references. Which NEC articles carry most of the questions, how to highlight a book so it helps under time pressure, and how to read an exception without missing the condition that makes it apply.

Texas licensing. TDLR electrician and air conditioning licenses, TSBPE plumbing licenses and the city rules that stand in for a state general contractor license. Rules change without much notice, so each post carries the date it was last checked and a link to the board's own page.

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