What Does it Take to Be an Underwater Welder?

what's of all two families Abraham here again I'm here at the ocean corporation in Houston Texas and in today's video we're gonna answer some questions right now and serhat what does it take to be an underwater welder what's up what the family I'm here with Richard man ask them some questions about what it takes to be an underwater wall there my first question I have for you Richard is uh well do underwater wonders well okay well there's a lot of misunderstandings so you've got offshore which is usually Gulf of Mexico and you have inland diving where they might be working in rivers dams ships nuclear power plants water treatment plants that kind of thing they got offshore where they're doing everything from pipelines construction on oil and gas platforms that kind of thing so there's a couple different areas usually they're going to be doing stick welding underwater two types of welding you have wet which is basically diver gets in just like you guys did in the water welding video and you weld you have dry or hyperbaric welding which basically you have a habitat and you'll put it over a typically a pipeline diver goes down you blow it all the air diver goes in pulls off his diamond hat puts on its hood welds underwater so those are going to be more critical type welds okay those require more time oh yeah right so the hyperbaric the dry welding there's typically a lot more expensive so it's kind of a last last thing they're gonna try to do your wet welding the diver jumps in he's got a stinger they can get after it versus having to manufacture a habitat and everything put it in place all that cool my second question I got for you is how much do underwater welders make right there yeah well once a student graduates an accredited diving school commercial diving school you know you can't just be a scuba diver and salmon underwater welder you have to go to an accredited commercial diving school you get out the pay depends on where you work and how you work most of our students at ocean corporation they end up going into the Gulf of Mexico typically out of South Louisiana they're gonna be working on your oil and gas type stuff pipelines and platforms support stuff that kind of thing starting pay depending on how much time you spend offshore is right out of schools about fifty thousand and you start out as an attender which is kind of an apprentice and then you work up to being a diver once you're a diver your pay really starts going up more you get pretty much a day rate and then once you start diving everything deeper than 50 feet you get paid by the foot the deeper you go the more money you make your deeper stuff 300 to about a thousand feet you know pays really good typically anywhere from 800 to about 1200 a day so you're more experienced divers doing your deeper more complex type stuff can make you know really good living but most of your commercial divers you're underwater welders you know they can make a pretty good living doing underwater welding and construction nice the question is uh what training is required right so like I said you can't just be a scuba diver and take a underwater welding course so you have to go through a commercial diving program will learn construction the physics all the stuff that goes into it mix gas underwater welding underwater burning you'll have to learn all that so you actually have to go through an accredited commercial dive school how long how long would that take most of schools are here at Ocean Corp seven and a half months so they're about six to nine months depending on the school okay what prevents someone from being a diver you have to be in fairly good shape it's a physically demanding job preventing things if you're claustrophobic you know you've got a hat on your head so you might be claustrophobic so that's kind of a middle thing physically if you have asthma or if you take medications on a routine basis you know if you're underwater working and you're down for a couple hours and you can't you can't take a pill or take a medication kind of thing so asthma heart conditions or having to take medications on a routine basis pretty much disqualified okay where do divers work divers work all over the world like I said you have inland divers work in lakes rivers dams water treatment facilities nuclear power plants most of your commercial diving stuff is done in the Gulf of Mexico out of South Louisiana you know there's thousands of offshore platforms out there that need to be maintained they need to be inspected when a hurricane comes through they'll have divers come in and call a flyby which basically they'll jump in do a quick inspection to see if there's any kind of damage when damage is done then it needs to be repaired when a platform stops producing or for hurricane actually destroys one knocks when over commercial divers go out pick those things up remove it and clear the bottom so you don't have any kind of stuff to get caught on anchors or fishing nets mm-hmm um this is probably related to how much waters mate I was wondering uh if I uh if I'm a commercial diver and I get contracted to work outside the country would I make more money but typically what will happen is you're gonna get the local dive companies here in the US will get overseas contracts and and Trinidad Africa that kind of thing pay is about the same the difference is you might get a 30-day stint so if you're going overseas there no you know they're not gonna want to send you for a week and back and forth so typically you'll go for 3045 days then you'll send you back get a break and go back and forth I have another question can females be divers sure we get females come in all the time always joke and laugh about the female divers they actually do really good here in school as well as the ones I've worked with offshore and I joke with the ladies saying because women like to be in charge so they like everything organized and structured they do pretty good you don't have to be a big muscle head gorilla to be a diver so you got to be in fairly good shape everything offshore the word I use is ginormous big heavy stuff out of Steel so you have to use your brain so you can figure out how do I move this big heavy stuff so rigging cranes tuggers that kind of thing but yeah females you know all the way up through deep water saturation diving not a problem how deep do divers go pretty much most of your work in the Gulf of Mexico is done in less than 500 feet of water but occasionally you'll get the deeper stuff saturation diving which is up to a thousand feet underwater that's pretty deep what is the lifestyle light lifestyle it's good and bad it's got perks benefits you know and then it's got its drawbacks so lifestyle is you don't have a set schedule when there's work you go to work you know and you stay out when you're busy because that's when you're making your money so you might go for a week you might go for a month you might go out for six weeks come in for a day go back out onto it for a week you might come in for two weeks go out so you don't have a set schedule when you're off shore it's you're working 12 hours seven days a week you're getting paid working eating sleeping you're still getting your pay and everything overtime you know everything over 40 you're getting your overtime pay once you start diving you're getting your depth pay it tends to be a little rough on relationships so if you've got the husband or wife at home the family you miss birthdays holidays Christmas that kind of thing right so most of your divers just like a lot of people who work offshore it's about quality not quantity so they make the most of it when they have family time you know and then mom or dad's got to go to work you know so it's pretty much just a lifestyle take some adjusting to get used to okay how dangerous is commercial diving I didn't use the word dangerous I've been around it pretty much all my life my dad and grandpa were both divers so I've seen it it's much much safer than what it used to be you know back in the 70s I saw pictures and my dad wearing a bathing suit flip-flops and sunglasses you know now hard hat you know you got your PPE safety glasses boots all that good stuff so to me there's risk involved just like with any job and it's not some some people think oh your biggest factor is drowning to me it's more stuff like moving stuff getting in pinch points put your fingers where they don't belong that kind of stuff so there is some risk involved but safety is always a major factor for anybody working offshore okay no this is a big question everybody has does it cut your life expenses e other short yeah so there's this is a myth that's been going around for a long time and they say you can only be a diver for 10 years what I call it is dive expectancy not life expectancy because who's going to do a job that's gonna cut your life short so the way it works is divers typically go out they make a bunch of money when they're younger they're healthier and everything and then you move up in to lead diver dive supervisor project managers so they kind of they're not diving anymore but they're still in the diving industry right so it's not so much your life expectancy gets cut short like I call it your dive expectancy but there are divers still out there working you into their sixties still getting in the water still doing the hard work so it's basically you know how physically fit are you stay with it you know older you know moved quite as fast but you've got the experience to get stuff done compared to the younger guy that moves faster right one of the biggest questions that I hear all the time right are sharks a problem they're sharks in the Gulf of Mexico everybody worries about sharks and what's going to get you you know everything offshore is 24/7 so the way it works if you come up in rotation at 2 o'clock in the morning and you go on the back of the boat you look around and it's dark you jump in the water a lot of people go well that's when sharks come out to eat sharks eat all the time I've never heard of a commercial diver being attacked by a shark you know you've got hoses and ropes and cables and you've got a hat on and a tank and noise and you're not food you know you don't look like a seal like a surfer would or you know something like that we don't have great whites swimming around in the Gulf attacking people so the biggest risk is not so much marine life it's more of you know having stuff you know pitch fingers getting matched or you know something like that but the marine life is really not a concern you're so focused on what you're doing you don't worry about that kind of thing do you even see the shows out there yeah you see them typically they'll come up don't bother you a whole lot you know they check you out and go on if it's a big shark you might want to keep an eye on it but at the most part I've never seen one personally yeah yeah yeah like I said one of the things that takes getting used to it's not so much the sharks but Barracuda which big long fish big ugly fish big teeth and they tend to hover around you you know they don't bite at you they don't get your way they don't mess with you that kind of thing so it takes a little getting used to you're in their environment but for the most part you see some neat stuff I've seen big sea turtles and you know all kind of cool stuff out there but nothing it was like just scary that I don't want to be here kind of thing in addition to what they know what what else underwater others do yeah well a lot of people you know they contact the school or they get here and they think I'm gonna be an underwater welder and that's all I'm gonna do and so the real world is you come here and you become a commercial diver which means you do lots and lots of nuts and bolts type stuff inspection some underwater welding lots of underwater burning underwater cutting using the torch that you did you know in the burning video so you don't do just do welding actually the welding is more of a small part jetting pipeline that has to be buried under you got a hand jet you know that kind of thing inspection possibly some NDT inspection work you'll have to do installing a nose that kind of thing so the underwater welding is just one piece of what you do so basically overall is your diving helmet is your transportation to get you to the worksite and then you're an underwater construction worker okay okay so pretty much your job title is not an underwater welder it's a commercial diver you're a commercial diver who does underwater welding okay and pretty much anything else they need you to do well thanks Richard all right thanks a lot

Channel: WeldTube

Views: 305,677

Keywords: arc welder, mig, pipeline, welding, welder, welding shop, GMAW, SMAW, welding definition, pipe schedule, cwi, how to weld, types of welding, welder salary, welding symbols, schedule, 40, pipe, welding supply store, Tig, welding jobs, welding schools, tulsa welding school, american welding society, weldporn, weld.com welding tips and tricks, ChuckE2009, learn to weld, pipe welding, welding basics, welding techniques, welding test

Id: R2_QEfBy5Wo

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 10 2019