Industrial Insulator Helper

Hawkeye Insulation Spec Inc; Cedar Rapids (IA); On-site; USD 22,000 - 33,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid vacation

Company retirement plan

Dental and vision

Travel compensation

OSHA 10 training

Foremen with decades of experience

Steady work and tenure among staff

Job summary

Hawkeye Insulation Specialists is seeking an Industrial Insulator Helper to learn an industrial trade from the ground up. You will work on-site in Cedar Rapids and surrounding areas, joining a team that values safety, reliability, and quality.

This role involves long shifts, potential out-of-town weeks, and hands-on training from experienced foremen. No insulation experience is required, but a strong desire to learn and a commitment to safety are essential as you grow toward becoming an

Qualifications

• Reliable attendance and punctuality across long shifts and out-of-town weeks.
• Conscientious about quality: measure before cutting and fix any seam if needed.
• Willingness to perform physical work in demanding environments (75 lb loads, ladders, heat/cold).
• Adheres to safety and sanitation rules on every site.
• Motivation to learn the insulation trade and advance from helper to insulator.

Responsibilities

• Work 10–12 hour shifts, with potential out-of-town plant shutdown weeks.
• Climb ladders/scaffolds and work at heights with fall protection.
• Carry insulation and jacketing materials up to 75 pounds.
• Follow site safety rules and cooperate with the foreman and crew.
• Learn on the job from experienced teammates to grow into an insulator role.

Skills

Reliability

Quality focus

Physical stamina

Safety adherence

Eagerness to learn

Job description

Hawkeye Insulation Specialists is looking for an Industrial Insulator Helper: someone who wants to learn an industrial trade from the ground up and can be counted on every shift while they learn it.

To be considered, you bring all of this:

• You show up, every time — on time every shift, including 10- to 12-hour days and the out-of-town weeks when a plant has scheduled its shutdown around our crew

• You're conscientious about quality — you measure before you cut, and a seam that's off bothers you enough to redo it

• You can take physical work in hard conditions — ladders, fall protection, loads up to 75 pounds, heat next to steam lines, cold in refrigerated rooms and industrial environments

• You follow rules you didn't write — every plant has its own safety and sanitation rules, and you follow all of them without being reminded

• You want to learn the trade — no insulation experience needed, but two years from now you want to be an insulator, not still a helper

Hawkeye Insulation Specialists insulates industrial process piping and equipment, with ammonia refrigeration as our specialty. From our base in Cedar Rapids, food plants, paper mills, and manufacturers call us when a line has to be insulated right and fast, and we're often there the same day. Eleven people, foremen with decades in the trade, and some who have been here twenty-nine years. Helpers learn on the job from the people who do the work, with no classroom hand-off and no guessing.

What the Work Actually Looks Like

Shifts run 10 to 12 hours. Some weeks you'll be out of town on a plant shutdown, staying in a hotel, because the plant planned its whole shutdown around our crew walking in Monday morning. Some days you're working next to steam lines in July. Other days you're in a refrigerated room at a food plant where the cold is in your fingers by 9 am.

You'll climb ladders, scaffolds, aerial lifts, and work at heights with fall protection. You'll carry insulation and sheets of metal jacketing up to 75 pounds.

Every plant has its own rules, and you understand it's vital to uphold them: necessary safety equipment, boot washes, sign-in logs, areas you can't enter without an escort. You follow every one of them, every time. Plants keep calling us because they never have to worry about our crews.

Your foreman will check your work quality. For the first few months, some will come back to you to do over. That's how you learn, and it's why a pipe we finished years ago still looks right today.

Right now the crew works a lot of overtime and plenty of Saturdays. Overtime is anything over 40 hours and pays time-and-a-half, double time on Sundays. Hiring you is part of how we bring the Saturdays down.

If ten- to twelve-hour days and a week in a hotel sound like a deal-breaker, this job will wear you out, and may not be for you. If you read that and thought, "I've done harder," keep going.

Who Belongs Here

• Show up ready means you're at the shop or the hotel lobby before the foreman, with the same attitude at hour eleven that you had at hour one. We can teach you to insulate. We can't teach you a desire to learn.

• Safe on every site means you treat each plant's rules like they're ours. A general contractor at one paper mill thanked our team in writing for bringing safety, quality, and production every time we step on site. The newest helper is part of that.

• We believe perfection means a seam that's off gets redone before anyone has to ask. One of our crews rebuilt a tank end cap at a customer's plant because the first one wasn't good enough to put our name on. Nobody told them to.

• Easy to have on site means you move your material out of the pipefitters' way and wait your turn on the scaffold. Our scope is one piece of a bigger project, and the other trades notice who makes their day easier.

• Handle it means if you notice the material is short for tomorrow, you say so tonight.

• Trustworthy and knowledgeable means you say "I don't know, let me ask" instead of guessing on a measurement. Plants take our word on their systems, and that word starts with the newest person on the crew.

Why Hawkeye

• Hawkeye pays 90% of your health insurance premium

• Paid vacation and holidays, plus a company-matched retirement plan

• Dental, vision, and Aflac available

• Travel compensation when a job is more than 60 miles out

• Paid OSHA 10 training

• Foremen who have been insulating industrial systems for decades, and who will teach you

• Steady work. There are very few industrial insulators in this area, and plants call us first.

• People stay. A couple of years, ten years, twenty-nine years.