anyone do underwater welding?

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have a few questions and looking for some info on a good school for it.If the conversation isn’t money, then I’ll see you later.
Reply:Never done it myself, but met a thousand people who once they find out I weld for a living told me they used to underwater weld. Don't know why, but thats always the answer I get. Very funny too cause most of the guys have the worst low paying jobs you could imagine, and settled for that over being an underwater welder. I hate being bi-polar it's awsomeMy Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
Reply:I am/was what do you want to know about it? I can tell you right now it's not worth getting into this field until the gulf has another hurricane. You'll be broke trust me. Go to a combo pipe welding school like Missouri Welding Institute and weld in shutdowns etc.
Reply:i was looking into heard there was good money but i guess not thanks for the info what would be the best fields to get into? whats the most paying one?If the conversation isn’t money, then I’ll see you later.
Reply:The money is good when the work is there.. Right now with the hurricane work done with and Obama slowing down alot of the permits alot of dive companies are struggling. Powerplant,refinery, nuke plant work pays pretty good.. You can get into it with some extensive pipe training.. ex 2" tig root/hi-low out- 2" Tig all the way out.
Reply:Like with many things everyone hears about the "big money" jobs. As mentioned there really aren't that many all the time. Keep in mind most guys never do all that much welding underwater. You become a commercial diver, not an underwater welder. There's more wrench work, rigging, inspections and some cutting but generally very little welding.The "big money" jobs like most in any industry are usually long hours, lots of time away from home and involve a fairly high risk. Deep water commercial diving chews guys up and spits them out. You won't find a ton of old guys doing that work. It's very hard on the body. Most do it for a short while, then migrate towards lower paying/ lower risk jobs in the industry like dock and pier work etc. if they stay in.There's been any number of threads on commercial diving/ welding here. Do a search on "underwater welding" or "commercial diving" and you'll get quite a few threads to read thru, some with some pretty good descriptions about what it's like to do the work and a few with some of the bigger name schools in the industry.Good luck..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:I'm getting S.C.U.B.A. certified this month and underwater welding is something that always intrestesd me.  I wish it was a steady-er paying job. Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2 Originally Posted by zapsterYou wanted to be the welder....zap
Reply:Scuba and commercial diving are two totally different animals. Commercial divers usually "walk" around mostly upright, while a good scuba diver is usually laying horizontal most of the time. Also I know quite a few scuba divers who got very claustrophobic in a commercial hat.There is a fair amount of steady commercial dive work, just not the big paying stuff. Most piers and bridges need regular inspections. Most inspections all the diver does is drag along a camera and the inspector topside tells him where to look and what other tests they want done. The diver is simply a "tool" for someone else to direct. There's a lot of  generic boat repair like replacing zinks, damaged props/rudders, some light salvage work ( I bet my buddy who I worked with commercially will be busy salvaging jetskis and boats after the holiday weekend again this year after the idiots sink them or loose their motor overboard...) they do some commercial fishing gear recovery off Jersey from time to time when draggers get stuck on junk on the bottom. My buddy spent his 1st few jobs in the middle of February standing chest deep in water in a leaky barge with a can of epoxy looking for leaks as they pumped out a bunch of half submerged barges, then got to take a "break" and stand on the dock in 14 deg temps tending the divers who were rigging cables on the barges and blasting out the mud with hoses underwater. They also pull a bunch of cars out of the river from time to time, do oil abatement in the river when ships spring leaks, patch up and salvage leaky barges, dive in the tanks at the sewage treatment  plant for inspections, do dives in the municipal water towers for inspections and so on. We used to have an account where we'd hall broken block out of a 10' deep tank in a plant that made cinder blocks.The company I worked for a few years back spent a good bit of one summer with a diver suited up on a tug in the Delaware river while they were doing bridge work overhead. The basic idea was if anyone fell, we were ready to go in on a moments notice and" rescue" them. ( read body recovery) It was hot and boring, especially for the guy who had to be suited and ready to go. My buddy who was  a tender spent most of the time in a chair reading a book on that job.  Spent 12 hours on one job babysitting a pump truck at the local sewage plant for oil abatement. Sunoco had a leak that got into the storm/sewer and we got the contract to vac all the oil off the settling tanks. Definitely not a fun job but the pay was ok. A lot better than when we have to dive in the tank.  We also used to do some confined space topside work for some clients. One of our guys was certified for petroleum pipe repairs and we'd get called in occasionally to do confined space repairs since we were on their "approved vender" list for other work. Lots of wrench work while walking around dry with the hat on for supplied air  in areas that might have bad air like tanks and barges, with the rest of us standing by as support.The average diver makes a decent wage, about what's comparable to a trained journeyman in most trades. Tenders and so on make less.Last edited by DSW; 05-26-2012 at 09:03 PM..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:thanks for the info guys im gonna look up a few more things.If the conversation isn’t money, then I’ll see you later.
Reply:I get people all the time ask me about this.  I usually just laugh my *** off. A good friend of mine did this for about 10 years.  He was the only underwater welder for a pipeline company here on the east coast.  He said he never got any extra pay for it, and it was the worst job ever.  Like others have said.  There is really no money in it.  These dive schools hype it up to get you to spend $30-50k for training for a job that pays $12-15 an hour.  There was just an article in "how it works magazine" describing how badly the job sucks. .Lincoln 300 Vantage 2008300 Commander 1999SA250 1999SA200 1968Miller Syncrowave 200XMT350MPA/S-52E/xr-15Xtreme 12vs Millermatic 251 w/30A  Millermatic 251 Dialarc 250 Hypertherm 1250 GEKA & Bantom Ironwokers
Reply:Originally Posted by MOE1i was looking into heard there was good money but i guess not thanks for the info what would be the best fields to get into? whats the most paying one?
Reply:Must be a Maryland thing.  Every time I tell someone I'm a welder they tell me i should get into underwater welding "cuz that's where the money is"Usually the guy saying it is sweeping the floor or something... Originally Posted by Xtreme FabricationI get people all the time ask me about this.  I usually just laugh my *** off. A good friend of mine did this for about 10 years.  He was the only underwater welder for a pipeline company here on the east coast.  He said he never got any extra pay for it, and it was the worst job ever.  Like others have said.  There is really no money in it.  These dive schools hype it up to get you to spend $30-50k for training for a job that pays $12-15 an hour.  There was just an article in "how it works magazine" describing how badly the job sucks. .