A skilled craft worker who works with heavy steel plates and tubes to construct, install, and maintain boilers, pressure vessels, and large tanks. In a plant setting, boilermakers handle the heavy mechanical repairs like replacing tube sheets, rolling new tubes, and welding pressure boundaries. Their work requires specialized certifications because a bad weld on a high-pressure vessel is a catastrophic hazard.
We've three cracked tubes in the front pass, so call the boilermakers to get them cut out and replaced by tomorrow.
Never ask a pipefitter to do a boilermaker's job. The jurisdictions are strictly guarded on union sites.
Related terms
Tube sheet
The thick flat plate at each end of a firetube boiler shell that the tube ends are rolled or welded into.
Punch the tubes
To clean soot from firetube boiler tubes by running a brush on a long rod through each one.
MAWP
Maximum allowable working pressure: the highest pressure a boiler is approved to operate at, stamped on its nameplate.