Pipefitter

Summary

This position is located at the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Hospital, (578) Hines, IL - a complexity level 1a VHA facility, and organizationally aligned to the Maintenance Section - Engineering, Service Line. The work includes working with pipes and fittings from a range of high pressure to low pressure steam.

Duties

• The incumbent of this position performs the duties of a Journeyman Pipefitter as follows: Repair, adjust, maintain, and install all types of plumbing and steam fixtures and their allied equipment. Perform various new installations of plumbing and steam equipment from laying out ordering materials, roughing-in to finished job. Repair, maintain, adjust, install, and improve all allied equipment for plumbing and heating such as meters, valves, compressors, pumps, steam traps, grease traps, strainers, reducing valves heating coils etc. Repair, install and maintain pipe insulation of fiberglass, molded magnesium, cork, and rubber. Repair, test and install various types of piping systems, including water, fire main system air gas vacuum and drainage from 1/8" to 12" pipe size using copper, brass, cast iron, iron or plastic pipe with threaded, caulked, soft solder, silver solder, cemented and flanged joints. Install, repair and maintain various types of equipment, such as dishwashers, kitchen equipment, sterilizers, autoclaves, hot water generators, and various other hospital equipment assigned to the Plumbing Shop. Repair and maintain heating, unit heating, which includes piping, convectors, coils, shut off valves, traps and circulating pumps. Perform preventive maintenance with basic activity. Fit and install various new hospital and laboratory equipment, including plumbing fixtures such as drinking fountains, lavatories, urinals, stools, sinks, etc. Repair, maintain and install (which may entail complete overhaul of vacuum pumps, compressed air pumps, water circulating pumps and all piping connected to these pumps. Maintain a stock level of repair parts and supplies. Is responsible for ordering of replacement parts and repair materials for the equipment assigned to the Plumbing Shop. Maintain, repair, test and install all outside plumbing which includes sanitary sewer, water, gas, fire main and underground sprinkler systems. Install and repair gas-fired equipment assigned to the Plumbing Shop, which includes solenoid valves, thermocouples, and other gas safety equipment. When not assigned to pipefitters, may be assigned to the station's steam production plant to perform duties as assigned by the operation section supervisor. These duties entail the operation of the steam plant, maintenance, and repair of the many different types of equipment such as pumps, D.A. Heaters, surge tanks, boilers and combustion control systems. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday 07:00AM-3:30PM Position Description Title/PD#: Pipefitter/PD09722A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 09/28/2026. EXPERIENCE: A specific length of training and experience is not required, but you must show evidence of training or experience of sufficient scope and quality of your ability to do the work of this position. Evidence which demonstrates you possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of this position must be supported by detailed descriptions of such on your resume. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualification Standards. SCREEN-OUT ELEMENT: Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element, which usually appears as question 1 in the on-line questionnaire. Those applicants who appear to possess at least the minimal acceptable qualification requirement are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated. The potential eligibles are then rated against the remainder of the Job Elements: Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements/Working Conditions: The incumbent's work assignments require regular and recurring physical exertions related to frequent inspections and requires considerable sitting, standing, walking, climbing, bending, crouching, stretching, reaching or similar movements. Lift and carry moderately heavy objects (50lbs). Work requires some degree of agility and dexterity when, for example, involves inspecting equipment/valve/trap in subbasement, ceiling, or other areas. Incumbent may be exposed to health hazard when performing inspections, troubleshooting, repair, etc. Visual acuity is required to conduct maintenance, repair, inspection, and complete administrative work.

Requirements

You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 Subject to background/security investigation Pre-employment physical required Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your probationary period or trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

How to apply

All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 09/28/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13064418. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/