The repair dept guy at the shop said he’s very flexible schedule wise, but I’m waiting to see if that actually includes weeknights.
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I have heard of some individuals that have their own stickers printed. It says something like "Inspected to CGA and PSI/PCI Standards" but they are not certified by them. How do they know they did them to the standards? They bought the book and tools. The number on it is one they made up and the shop is their garage with an email address instead of a phone number.
It's mainly for travel to out of state locations that want a shop name on it. The fillers think that this relieves them of liability even though no law requires a visual other than at the time of hydro in the US.
It's an industry standard. Even then it's more of a guideline because a shop could fill without a current one and unless there was an accident, no one would care and there would be no legal consequences if they filled a tank out of vis.
There is also some misconception about when the sticker expires depending on where you go. I've seen a shop deny fills on the 5th for a June sticker. They said the vis was due June 1st so it was out. Another shop knew it was good til the end of the month punched. Depends on the fill person working.
You never know and yes bad shops sometimes slap a sticker on. Do shops do this more or less than independent inspectors? Who knows, for sure if someone is doing this and called out on it "hey there's rust in this tank!" they will claim that it occurred after their inspection - and there's almost no way to refute that.I like this idea. I was thinking along the same and you posted it.
How does anyone know that the "other" guy actually did the VIP? What if that guy just slaps a sticker on. You don't really know, so technically there's no difference between "stickers", unless you yourself VIP and sticker the thing.
Edit: for clarification, I mean what's the difference between say @Marie13 doing it or another shop?
That got me to thinking about why I wanted the VIP cert in the first place. Thx.How does anyone know that the "other" guy actually did the VIP? What if that guy just slaps a sticker on. You don't really know, so technically there's no difference between "stickers", unless you yourself VIP and sticker the thing.
Maybe another way to think about your cert:Lowviz is getting the rest of my VIP stickers. Pitched the rest of my tools into the trash. At least I had very little money in them.
I have found amazing things in cylinders. When I took over cylinder inspection for a liveaboard dive boat company and did all of the VIPs the first year, I found spaghetti noodles, a dead cockroach, a ton of rust and/or aluminum oxide, slime, goo and other stuff that maybe we shouldn't breathe.
My wife repairs regulators in a scuba shop. We can all agree that regulators aren't cheap, and even cost more than cylinders. Many divers own their own regulators, probably more than own their own cylinders.I'm not rich, my tanks weren't cheap. I'd like to keep them in pristine shape for as long as I can, and I surely don't want to breath rust and contaminants just because I was lazy.