Looking for information on underwater welding

[abmiller95]

Okay so I am a 17 year old girl, I have been welding for 3 going on 4 years now. I will take my NOCTI's this year and im not sure on what I want to do. Can any underwater welders tell me about the dangers, perks, long term health risks, etc. I cant find much information on this topic online and colleges dont give much either. What type of certifications will I need? And if anyone can recommend any underwater colleges that would help so much! Btw I live in PA.

Thank you!

[astaindsoul5446]

http://www.weldinginfocenter.org/sci_tech/st_02.html

[power]

abmiller95, If you can find a copy or maybe go on line and look at last months Popular Science magazine they did a artical on underwater welding on intake pipes and cooling systems in nuke power plants. A woman teaches the classes and does the certification for underwater welding if I remember correct it was on the east coast? Good luck Dale

[Steelin' Ducks]

There is a Tech school in Morgan City LA that offers a cert in commercial diving. I went down there around 1999 to check it out. At the time I believe there were 6 schools in the country that offered a cert in hard hat diving. I talked to a lot of people in the industry and it turned out that money was really slow. It took 5-6 years to start making anything over $20 per hour.

[JoeMayo]

Join forums like cdiver.net or offshorediver.com

I stopped doing commercial diving the end of last year now I do combo pipe welding. Right now in the gulf (not sure about north east) you'll make about 14.50-15.00 and hour. You could work 4 days one week then off for 3 weeks then you'll go on a 6 week long job then your off for a month. You'll probably never "weld" underwater. most of the time it's underwater rigging,inspection,survey or burning. It'll take you 4-6 years right now to break out and become a actual diver. Until then you'll be the boats bitch and will have to get the supv's coffee clean the chambers and hold the divers dive hose for hours. You might make 30k your first year if your lucky. If you really want to do this wait and see if we have a major hurricane in the gulf this year if we do then head to school.

[abmiller95]

Thank you guys so much! I hope this helps a lot, I will definitely be researching much more.

[DSW]

If you are looking for a school in the SE PA area, Divers Academy in Camden NJ is local. I've posted up some of the bigger dive schools in the past here if you search. As Joe Mayo mentioned you'll do very little welding under water. It's mostly inspection work, assembling things with wrenches, rigging, some burning to remove old parts, ROV work, etc.


As far as hazards, disbaric osteo bone necrosis is one. It's where your bones start to break down due to long term exposure to high pressures usually associated with deep or long dives. Oxygen toxicity, embolisms, the "bends" are other big medical diving hazards. Then there's always the "basic" everyday injuries that can happen any time you are around heavy stuff and pitching seas, pinch and crush injuries from swinging loads and snapping lines/cables, drowning, burns, various injuries from marine life ( urchin spines, sharp corals etc not sharks) just to name a few.

The more hazardous the job, generally the higher the diver gets paid. The big money jobs can quickly take a toll on a divers body. You won't find many old divers in big money jobs. It's just too hard on them. That said, there's plenty of opportunity for "lesser" jobs diving. Bridge and pier inspections, light salvage, underwater ship/boat repairs and hull cleaning, waste water treatment plant inspections just to name a few I've worked when I was working for a commercial dive company before the bottom fell out of the economy.

[lewray]

I checked out a lot schools about 10 years ago and researched. Everything the guys just mentioned is exactly the way I found it to be too. Some great schools on east coast near the Deleware river

"breakout" period could be a year or longer... and as far as welding goes, you most likely be a hard hat diver as mentioned earlier.

I think the nuke sites may be the ticket for welding..

[hrdhatdivr]

welding underwater s not bad . but not done on a steady basis .
if you want to make money go to weld school or loook for a pipefitter,or steamfitter apprenticeship get your weld certs. you can make more money and be working .
the bravo of welding underwater and also being a female diver will be hard on you as to ascertain jobs . even if you are the most qualified .
i'm trying to shoot you down but , the apprenticeship route in one of those unions will prosper far better for you .

[Xtreme Fabrication]

I just had yet another guy ask me this week. (seems like a monthly thing around here of people walking into my shop asking about it) "I heard underwater welders make bank??" Um let me explain to you about all of that. Umm NOPE! I had a very good friend who did it for 10 years working for a pipe line company. He will tell you its the worst job in the business, you don't make any money and everyone wants your job until they realized how bad it is. The dive schools hype it up so much its not even funny. They want you to blow $30-50k for their school only to get a $12-15 an hour job diving. You make better money welding pipe on land. Sorry to be a buzz kill, I just tell it how it is.

[hrdhatdivr]

well i do pretty good as a diver . but i also get alot more work topside . its a trade off . but one thing to say is there is alot of wanna bes ,looking for glory its not there . and a dive industry with alot of no talent in the way of people who are proficent at what they do . alot of destabilization of the industry. now in the welding industry you either got it or you dont and when you get to the job ,they sort through and get right people for the job .

[Boeijavo]

is underwater welding training really cost a lot? I wonder how much will it cost to be trained.

[JoeMayo]

If you go to Memorial in LA it's around 6-8k I think. You gotta go for 2 semesters though. Other schools are around 16+k.. Honestly not a good time to jump in.

is underwater welding training really cost a lot? I wonder how much will it cost to be trained.

[blackbart]

I remember a very old (WW1 or WW2)navy welding manual that just had 1 page on underwater welding. It showed dipping a rod in wax, jumping in the water with normal welding gear, and going for it. I wasn't going to try that, seemed like a good way to get electrocuted! I did, however try it in a bucket of water just for fun with extremely ugly results! All I remember is zero visibility and bubbles everywhere! I design, build, and repair marinas, but have never found anything I cant get out of the water to repair right. It seems like an underwater weld would be a temporary fix at the best, but I don't know much about it. I will tell you that 8 hours of diving is somehow far more exhausting than most other jobs, again I'm not sure why, it seems like it would be easier. I also do some commercial diving,rescue,and recovery work. Most of my underwater work is prefabed and bolted in place. I do have a friend in Seattle who is going through a commercial diving and welding school. Maybe he can teach me something, I'm sure things have advanced since my 1940 manual! I can tell you you have to have a calm personality and not prone to panic to dive in zero visibility water. It doesn't get any darker than deep black water, I have had to rescue many divers that almost drowned just from panic alone. Everything was working fine with their gear, they just couldn't control their thoughts. Most divers that drown still have plenty of air in their tanks.