International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers

Want to join an elite membership of skilled craftsmen and women who are trained to be the best? Looking for a defined benefit pension? Excellent healthcare for you and your family? A generous annuity plan? If you answered “Yes”, then the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers is right for you.

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More Than Excellent Wages

Our Apprentices Have An Opportunity To Build A Career In The Construction Trades

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Learn With The Best

Every Apprentice is given the same opportunity: You start out with our four or five-year apprenticeship and work your way through our training to become a foreman. Your journey doesn’t need to end there. Many of our union members have continued to climb the ladder as they reach higher positions.

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Earn While You Learn

Certified WV Insulators and other construction positions are in high demand across the United States. As an apprentice with the HFIAW you will develop industry skills while you earn top wages and enjoy excellent benefits, including: Competitive Wages, Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Health Insurance, Construction & OSHA Certifications.

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Unlock Your Future

No matter if you have been an insulator for 30 years, three weeks or seven years, our insulators all have one goal; having a life-long career. From all ages and genders, the Insulators Union creates a great work environment so that everyone feels comfortable performing quality work that impacts the environment.

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Join A Brotherhood Of Skilled Craftsmen & Women

For over 100 years our union has endured, through good times and bad, in peacetime and at war, through economic depression and prosperity, in favor and out of favor with governments and politicians. Through it all we not only have survived; we have flourished.

We are one International Association made strong by our members’ dedication to excellence and to the highest traditions of trade unionism. This is the legacy we have been given and the legacy we wish to pass on to those who follow.

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Our History

In 1903, Local No. 1, now known as Pipe Coverers Union No. 1, out of St. Louis sent out an invitation for other trades to join with them in an affiliation with the newly formed National Building Trades Council of America. The interested locals that responded to the call for the formation of a national union met for their first convention on July 7, 1903. Our constitution was drafted and approved, by-laws were adopted, A.J. Kennedy of Chicago was elected the first president of the organization, and an assessment of $1.00 per member was levied on each local union to pay expenses of the convention.

What We Do

A skilled Insulator/Asbestos Worker’s job includes the insulation of both industrial and commercial mechanical systems (i.e. piping, boilers, duct work, storage tanks, and equipment) for the purpose of energy savings: burn protection: and to control system heat transfer and condensation. The bulk of this work is in industrial settings (power plants, chemical plants, refineries, steel mills, etc). They work with many types of insulating materials, mastics (high grade adhesives-glue) and vapor barriers. Work is done from blueprints, using a wide variety of power tools.

Work Anywhere In West Virginia

Our jurisdiction covers all of the fifty-five (55) counties of West Virginia. There are two affiliate Insulator locals in our organization. Local 80 in Winfield, WV with a training center. Local 2 in bordering PA – with a center in Clinton is a member of the West Virginia Building Trades and has a training center.

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What Type Of Work Does An Insulator Do?

Today’s union insulator is skilled in the installation of mechanical insulation, fire stopping, asbestos and lead mitigation or abatement, sound attenuation and specialty fabrications required in custom mechanical insulation installations for commercial, industrial, medical, bio-technical, governmental and educational facilities among other customer types.

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Why Join An Insulators Union Apprenticeship?

Our professional mechanical insulators that have achieved journeyman status in the union through a multi-year classroom and 1,600 hour per year on-the-job training program second to none in North America. We are looking for dedicated individuals to start your career with our Registered Apprenticeship Program to train as Mechanical Insulators. To learn more about the exciting insulation career opportunities, get started today.

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