How to Hire HVAC Techs, Plumbers and Electricians in Berks

If you run a heating, plumbing or electrical shop in Berks County, I'm guessing you've had a truck sitting idle for a while now because you can't find anyone qualified to drive it. You've posted the job and asked around, and the few finished technicians in the county already work for somebody who's paying them to stay. You're not going to hire a finished tech here. You're going to make one, and the way you make one is a registered apprenticeship your shop sponsors, with the classroom half taught at night at the Berks Career and Technology Center.

The piece most owners get backwards is who runs the training. It isn't the school. The career and technology center teaches the classroom hours for employers who already hold a registered apprenticeship program, so it can't hand you a graduate you didn't sponsor. You're the program, and the night class is the half you buy. Once that clicks, the whole path is short: a night class at a Berks career center, a Pennsylvania-registered apprenticeship with your shop's name on it, and a City of Reading journeyman license at the end. How cleanly that last piece fits depends on the trade, and I'll get to that.

Every shop competing with you for that same person is listed under home and construction services in Berks County, and most of them are staring at the same empty truck. The ones who figure out the apprenticeship route first will have a trained tech three years from now.

What an HVAC tech, plumber or electrician earns in Berks County

Before you write an offer, you need to know the number it's going to sit next to. Here are the hourly wages for the three trades in the Reading metropolitan area, which is Berks County and nothing else.

Hourly wages, Reading metropolitan area. Reference period May 2025.

At the median, electricians run about six dollars an hour above the other two trades, and the gap widens toward the top of the band. HVAC and plumbing medians sit about thirty cents apart, so if your shop does both, you're writing one wage, not two.

The 25th to 75th percentile band is where your offer lives. Come in under it and you're asking somebody to take a discount on the county rate, which they won't. Come in over it and you're paying to pull somebody else's trained person off their truck, which is the fight you're trying to get out of.

Notice something else about the HVAC row. It compresses at the top, topping out well below where plumbing and electrical do, so an HVAC shop can't hold its best technician on raises alone. What you can offer instead is a path to a license, and that's what the rest of this post is about.

How to register an apprenticeship program in Pennsylvania

So who runs a registered apprenticeship? You do, and you don't need a union to do it, because Pennsylvania registers programs run by a single employer, which it calls non-joint programs. The Apprenticeship and Training Office at the state is where the program gets registered, and it happens in four steps. That sounds like a winter of paperwork, but it isn't, because the standards underneath it are short.

• A term of not less than one year or 2,000 hours, consistent with training practice in the trade. That's roughly one full-time year on your trucks.
• A minimum of 144 classroom hours for each year of apprenticeship, which is recommended rather than required. As you'll see below, the Reading license path expects it anyway.
• A probationary period that's reasonable in relation to the full term, with full credit toward completion. In plain terms, you get a trial window at the start, and the hours count if the person stays.

The rule that bites a two-truck shop first is the ratio. One to four journeymen regularly employed supports one apprentice. A fifth journeyman buys you a second apprentice, a tenth buys a third, and every additional five buys one more. If your headcount doesn't support the apprentices you want, the Council can grant an exemption, but you have to ask in writing.

What does registering cost? There's no published fee. The office answers questions at Apprenticeship@pa.gov and 717-787-6997.

Where the night classes are in Berks County

Berks Career and Technology Center teaches all three trades at night, two nights a week, while your apprentice works your trucks by day. Here's how the three programs lay out.

Your side of the deal is 2,000 hours a year of employment. First-year students also get a shot at the OSHA 10 card, and the HVAC program builds the refrigerant transition and recovery test into the curriculum. Adult and continuing education answers at 610-743-7630.

Where else does a Berks owner look? There are four more doors.

• Reading Muhlenberg Career and Technology Center is at 2615 Warren Road in Reading, 610-921-7300. It teaches Electrical Technology and Plumbing and Heating, places seniors with employers through a work-based learning capstone, and builds custom training for a crew you already have.
• Berks Technical Institute in Wyomissing, 866-553-0548, runs ten-month HVAC and Electrical programs.
• ABC Keystone in Manheim runs registered apprenticeship programs covering all three trades, with a $125 application fee. Enrollment for the 2026-2027 school year has closed, so the window to aim at is 2027-2028.
• IBEW Local 743's joint apprenticeship training committee, at 20 Morgan Drive in Reading, 610-777-8388, opened intake on September 1 for the 2027-2028 school year. Applicants need a passing algebra grade on a transcript and have to live in the local's jurisdiction. That's the union route. The union hall at 1022 James Drive in Leesport, 610-777-3100, is the local's general contact.

Training money you can claim for the new hire

This is where the math starts to work in your favor. PA CareerLink Berks County reimburses at least 50 percent of an eligible new employee's wages for a set period through on-the-job training, and the average reimbursement runs $3,000 to $4,000 per employee. The conditions are the whole game.

• The position has to be full time, meaning 30 or more hours a week.
• It has to be permanent, not seasonal or temporary.
• The application has to be approved before the new hire's first day.

Read that last one twice. If your apprentice starts on a Monday and you call on Tuesday, you've missed it. Call the business services team at 610-988-1395 at least five business days before the start date, or you pay full freight. The office is at 1920 Kutztown Road, Suite F, in Reading.

There's a second pot for the classroom half. The Foundations in Industry Training grant pays $3,000 per apprentice per year toward the classroom instruction, for plans not to exceed three years. A single employer can apply, through the state's grants system.

Owners ask me whether there's a Pennsylvania apprenticeship tax credit, and there isn't one. Pennsylvania offers grants instead, which means you apply up front rather than wait for April.

Does a technician need a license in Pennsylvania?

The state doesn't require one. Pennsylvania has no licensure or certification requirement for most construction contractors or their employees. Municipalities set their own rules, typically for home improvement contractors, electricians and plumbers, and the state keeps no record of which ones do. So it's a township question, one township at a time, and the wider version is in the post on becoming a licensed contractor in Pennsylvania.

The City of Reading licenses all three trades, and the fees are small: $50 a year for a journeyman and $90 for a master. Exams run through the ICC now rather than the city. For a shop building its own tech, that license is the finish line.

Check the hour count before you commit, because it differs by trade. Reading's journeyman electrician path asks for a four-year registered apprenticeship with at least 144 hours a year of related instruction, and the Berks Career and Technology Center electrical program clears that at 180. Plumbing and mechanical ask for four years at not less than 216 hours a year. The Berks night programs run 210 for plumbing over four years and 195 for HVAC over three, and neither of those reaches 216 on its face. So an apprentice in either trade should take the hour count to the codes office and get an answer in writing before sitting an exam. You can make that call for them now, before anyone has invested a year.

Reciprocity is the other lever, and that list differs by trade too. The electrical list runs to whole states, while plumbing and mechanical name fewer cities plus surrounding states with a state license. Each list is printed on its own application form. A licensed technician moving into the area applies for a reciprocal license, which has to come from a first, second or third class city, and electrical applications go to Reading's Electrical Board for review. The fee is a one-time reciprocation charge on top of the annual one. Why does that matter to you? It turns a relocation into a hire.

The EPA card an HVAC hire needs

One more piece for the HVAC shops. A technician who maintains, services, repairs or disposes of equipment that could release ozone depleting refrigerants has to be certified under Section 608. An EPA-approved certifying organization gives the test, and the credential doesn't expire. It's one test, taken once, for the person's whole career.

What the offer has to look like

So, what do you actually put in front of somebody? Pick your point in the wage band, and then pay for the rest with the pieces I've walked you through: an apprenticeship you sponsor, a night class the state helps fund, wage reimbursement across the first months, and a path to a license the person couldn't have walked alone. That's a package rather than a number, and it's a lot harder for the shop down the road to copy than a raise is. If nobody's applying, stop looking for a finished technician and sponsor one, because three years of nights turns somebody willing into somebody trained, and the alternative is three years of the position sitting open. Write the opening with all of it spelled out, put it where the applicants are, and put it on the BerksConnect job board too, where a person reviews it before it goes live.