Pipelayer Lay pipe for storm or sanitation sewers, drains, and water mains. Perform any combination of the following tasks: grade trenches or culverts, position pipe, or seal joints.
Pipelayer is Also Know as
In different settings, Pipelayer is titled as
- Pipelayer
- Tailman
- Waste Water Worker
Education and Training of Pipelayer
Pipelayer is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Pipelayer
Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.
Education Required for Pipelayer
These occupations usually require a high school diploma.
Degrees Related to Pipelayer
Training Required for Pipelayer
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Pipelayer in different industries are
- Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
- Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
- Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners
- Construction Laborers
- Insulation Workers, Mechanical
- Insulation Workers, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall
- Sheet Metal Workers
- Structural Iron and Steel Workers
- Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators
- Boilermakers
- Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installers
- Control and Valve Installers and Repairers, Except Mechanical Door
- Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters
- Maintenance Workers, Machinery
- Brickmasons and Blockmasons
- Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers
- Carpenters
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators, Surface Mining
- Reinforcing Iron and Rebar Workers
What Do Pipelayer do?
- Check slopes for conformance to requirements, using levels or lasers.
- Cover pipes with earth or other materials.
- Connect pipe pieces and seal joints, using welding equipment, cement, or glue.
- Cut pipes to required lengths.
- Install or repair sanitary or stormwater sewer structures or pipe systems.
- Install or use instruments such as lasers, grade rods, or transit levels.
- Grade or level trench bases, using tamping machines or hand tools.
- Lay out pipe routes, following written instructions or blueprints and coordinating layouts with supervisors.
- Align and position pipes to prepare them for welding or sealing.
- Dig trenches to desired or required depths, by hand or using trenching tools.
- Operate mechanized equipment, such as pickup trucks, rollers, tandem dump trucks, front-end loaders, or backhoes.
- Train or supervise others in laying pipe.
- Tap and drill holes into pipes to introduce auxiliary lines or devices.
- Locate existing pipes needing repair or replacement, using magnetic or radio indicators.
Qualities of Good Pipelayer
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Pipelayer
- Air compressors
- Air hammers
- Aligning clamps
- Backhoes
- Belting slings
- Bevel grinding machines
- Block and tackle equipment
- Boring machines
- Bulldozers
- Cable plows
- Caulking guns
- Combination squares
- Compactors
- Concrete saws
- Cutting torches
- Desktop computers
- Ditch pumps
- Dredges
- Drill presses
- Excavators
- Explosimeters
- Facing machines
- Fill pumps
- Forklifts
- Framing squares
- Generators
- Graders
- Hammers
- Hand tampers
- Horizontal boring machines
- Hydraulic cranes
- Ladders
- Laser printers
- Leak detection equipment
- Manlifts
- Manual benders
- Manual screw jacks
- Metal inert gas MIG welders
- Motor-driven brushes
- Motor-driven grinders
- Narrow mouth shovels
- Notebook computers
- Null locators
- Offset socket wrench sets
- Ohmmeters
- Optical levels
- Personal computers
- Pigs
- Pipe bending mandrels
- Pipe beveling machines
- Pipe cutting machines
- Pipe lasers
- Pipe threaders
- Pipelayers
- Pipeline jacks
- Portable grinders
- Portable welding machines
- Power drills
- Power saws
- Powered tampers
- Pressure testers
- Pry bars
- Reciprocating pipe saws
- Roll groovers
- Round point shovels
- Sand pumps
- Sandblasters
- Scaffolding
- Shielded arc welding tools
- Single-cut mill saw files
- Sledgehammers
- Snakes
- Stationary grinders
- Tapping machines
- Test pumps
- Track loaders
- Tractor pipe carrier attachments
- Tractors with backhoe attachments
- Tractors with loader attachments
- Transit levels
- Trenchers
- Tungsten inert gas TIG welding equipment
- Voltmeters
- Water removal pumps
- Welding hoods
- Wheel loaders
- Winches
- Wire tracers
Technology Skills required for Pipelayer
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Spreadsheet software
- Word processing software