It has been a LOOOOOONG time since I sat for the NRRPT exam, but my understanding is that all work that is directly related to Health Physics / Radiation Protection counts toward the required five years. If you calibrate rad instruments, do routine surveys, or do direct job coverage, your time counts.
The NRRPT recognizes that HP/RP technicians have other duties that are not directly related to rad protection. They use a percentage formula to calculate the actual time. In your case, if you are a Boilermaker with a Green Badge, they would ask you to enter the time you worked as a Boilermaker, and specify what percentage of that time was spent on Radiation Protection. If you are working for Pickering A in the Rad Protection Unit, your time would be 100% except for the days when you went back to your trade. There is a block on the exam application for each job where you enter this percentage.
The concept of greenmanning (work groups or trades providing their own RP coverage) is a "foreign" concept here in the US. Even the use of self-monitoring (yellow badge) is limited here because it requires workers to divide their attention. Mostly, only the plant operations staff is even trained and qualified to do this, and they never do routine surveys or release material from controlled areas. If you did such tasks when you had your yellow badge, the time you spent doing them would count also.
So, NRRPT may have trouble understanding what you are trying to ask. If they get confused, send me a private message and I can try to interpret for you ao they can uderstand what you are talking about.