Did you know that the average steamfitter (or pipefitter) makes $32 per hour in Canada? That’s an annual income of around $60,000! People aren’t kidding when they tell you that trades people are in high demand these days.

Steamfitters at the top of the experience ladder make about $45 per hour. That’s around $85,000 per year in the golden years of your career on a full-time work schedule.  The wages really do speak for themselves.  It’s a balance of theory and practice that makes our graduates competitive in the job market. The four-week work placement (160 hours) goes a particularly long way toward arming our graduates with the right skills to beat out the competition.

The best part is that the recent agreement to foster apprentices in their trades around Canada now lets graduates of Eastern College’s steamfitter program become recognized all across the country for all of their hours spent on gaining experience and technical training.

What do Pipefitters do?

Steamfitters read blueprints, create versions of their own blueprints, access piping behind walls, repairing pipes, and creating new parts for pipes to be laid in the future. It involves careful measuring, methodical planning, and precise execution.

The course in Saint John focuses on introducing students to the fundamentals and mastering them. These include assembly, installation, and repair. The most common kinds of environment for steamfitters’ work tend to be industrial and manufacturing facilities as well as water treatment plants—so those are the kinds of pipes that we train our students to handle.

Steamfitters can branch out into numerous specialties as apprentices, such as plumbing. Steamfitters with enough experience can also step up to supervisory roles if they work in teams. Supervisors need to have the hands-on experience and the people management skills to be effective leaders.

Where do Steamfitters work?

Steamfitters work all over the place, but these aren’t always in the public eye. They find regular work with construction companies, plumbing companies, steel and metal fabricators, development companies (especially residential developers!), electric utility companies, vehicle manufacturers, and, even companies that work with pulp and paper.

You can find work all over Canada with steamfitter experience at Eastern College. In fact, you’ll be ready to write the Apprentice level 1 exam by the time you graduate. Let’s funnel your career in the right direction.