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Job Description

Overview

This position is located in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) at the Salem VA Medical Center, focusing on the installation, maintenance, and repair of high temperature water and high-pressure piping systems.

Responsibilities

  • Installs, modifies, repairs, and maintains high temperature water and high pressure piping systems.
  • Installs and repairs steam generators, vacuum, air, water, and condensate pumps, radiators, and valves.
  • Sets up system routes, cuts openings, installs regulating devices, and places hangers.
  • Determines and installs risers, flexible branches, expansion joints, pumps, gauges, and pressure regulators.
  • Reads and interprets blueprints, layout sketches, and manufacturers' specifications.
  • Replaces sections of pipe and repairs steam traps and control valves.
  • Cuts, threads, and connects pipes using various methods.
  • Tests systems for proper operation, circulation, flow, pressure, and leak-free joints.
  • Troubleshoots pipe lines and systems to locate and repair leaks.
  • Performs safety and preventive maintenance inspections.
  • Installs, troubleshoots, repairs, and modifies plumbing systems and fixtures.

Additional Information

  • Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 7:45am - 4:30pm, with ability to work weekends and holidays.
  • Position Description Title/PD#: Pipefitter/PD07892A
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How this job compares in Salem, VA

Pay in context

At roughly $29/hr, this posting lands within a few percent of the $29/hr median for welding jobs across Virginia, whose middle half runs $25–$34/hr across 98 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 51% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. In other words it is a market-rate offer, so benefits, overtime, and shift schedule are where the real difference between this and the next posting on the list shows up.

The local market in Salem, VA

This is the only active welding job we're currently tracking in Salem, VA, which makes it worth moving on quickly — there is no local competing offer to weigh it against. Across Virginia as a whole we're tracking 159 other active welding openings from 96 employers. Browse welding jobs across Virginia.

Veterans Health Administration currently has 1 other opening live in Virginia, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.

The most active employers in Virginia at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are Colonna's Shipyard (8), Mission Technologies, a division of HII (7), and Newport News Shipbuilding, A Division of HII (6). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.

Within Virginia, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Newport News at $38/hr, Norfolk at $32/hr, and Virginia Beach at $30/hr. If you can relocate or commute, that spread is worth factoring in.

Similar openings near Salem, VA

Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Pipefitter figures were last recalculated when this page was built.