Air tanks haven't been inspected/tested in 11 years.. should I panic?

[Peter69_56]

This is a very common occurrence in Thailand. Many boats keep their tanks on the boat for 10 years or so, never washed never inspected and never hydro,d until there is a problem like a tank leak from the tank body due to corrosion or an issue with the valve. Often a new LDS owner steps in and has all the tanks tested. What one then finds is many of the tanks then fail due to valves seized in, tanks with air leaks from the tank body (yes). In completing a hydro course I witnessed the normal requirement to get many valves out of the tanks, by the use of a heavy steel plate fitting over the valve with a 2 metre handle and a hammer hitting pad. Strap the tank down, fit the removal tool get someone to swing on the 2 metre handle and hit the hammer pad with a large hammer. Often it rips the corroded thread out of the tank. One tank had an air leak from the side of the tank, corroded through from the inside due to corrosion from salt induced air.

Not it all dive shops or boats are like this but enough in the country to be a worry. I assume there are a number of other countries similar to this.

Now Consider all these untested tanks on a dive boat, a 5 metre fill whip (corroding due to steel fittings) pumping tanks with divers everywhere on the dive deck, a recipe for disaster.

 

[CT-Rich]

I wonder what if they are having things like the emergency gear inspected? Hate to have a heart attack or get bent and find out that some one used all the O2 for their hangover in 2012...

 

[Piranhana]

Update: the shop is lobbying the owner to get the cylinders checked. Found one with a 2003 date stamp this afternoon! The instructors don't have much hope that the owner is going to do anything until one actually explodes though..

Air compressor was replaced last year. It broke, and the boat boys bodged a fix, but then that stopped working so they just bought a new one. Yes.. my dive school let a couple of Burmese immigrants with no technical training fix the compressor without the correct tools/parts. Wouldn't be surprised if they used duct tape and zip ties to be honest.

Emergency gear is looked after and maintained by the manager. The 02 cylinder was bought new a few months ago and I checked it a few weeks ago.

Rental gear is not in great condition exactly.. lots of hoses have bulges near the first stage (we have to cut them in half to stop the equipment maintenance guy putting it back in the cupboard for re-issue without fixing it, which happens fairly often), most things leak air, and I had a gauge that would only tell me the correct tank pressure if I hit it a few times. Hoses burst quite regularly too.

Also I get made fun of for changing o-rings all the time, but I'd rather that than it rupturing and emptying my tank

Thank you for all the replies!

 

[Peter69_56]

Update: the shop is lobbying the owner to get the cylinders checked. Found one with a 2003 date stamp this afternoon! The instructors don't have much hope that the owner is going to do anything until one actually explodes though..

Air compressor was replaced last year. It broke, and the boat boys bodged a fix, but then that stopped working so they just bought a new one. Yes.. my dive school let a couple of Burmese immigrants with no technical training fix the compressor without the correct tools/parts. Wouldn't be surprised if they used duct tape and zip ties to be honest.

Emergency gear is looked after and maintained by the manager. The 02 cylinder was bought new a few months ago and I checked it a few weeks ago.

Rental gear is not in great condition exactly.. lots of hoses have bulges near the first stage (we have to cut them in half to stop the equipment maintenance guy putting it back in the cupboard for re-issue without fixing it, which happens fairly often), most things leak air, and I had a gauge that would only tell me the correct tank pressure if I hit it a few times. Hoses burst quite regularly too.

Also I get made fun of for changing o-rings all the time, but I'd rather that than it rupturing and emptying my tank

Thank you for all the replies!

This is very much Thailand. Many of the dive shops lease the dive boat so get whatever is on (or not on) the boat. Often no oxygen, tanks not inspected or ever washed, valves in bad shap and who knows what the compressor and filters are like.

Repairs are are quite often done by untrained locals which is the norm. I didn't find any bad air when there but have had some in Bali. There some change their filters on a monthly basis rather than air volume or number of tanks, so in a very busy month bad air is a real possibility.

I always take take my own gear, no exceptions. I pay the additional cost so I know at least the gear is reliable. I also test my air for oxygen content and co

 

[scoobydrew]

This is common in SE Asia but not by any means the only way. Some dive centres are good and on top of this kind of thing, the question to ask yourself is who do you want to be with?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Tanks that are in reasonable condition rarely fail hydro, so I would not be too worried about the hydros. However, tanks on a boat should be inspected internally every 3 months or so. so... I would pull the valves and have a look at the inside and the threads of the neck. If the valves are corroded and stuck, I think that possibly some accidents would occur such as placing the wrench on the face of the valve and deforming it irreparably.. Once that terrible accident occurs, the only solution is to replace the entire tank. You could explain that the valve developed a bad neck leak and there was no choice but to pull the valve and replace the O-ring and you tried really hard but the wrench slipped.

 

[gekodivebali]

It's always nice to hear some divers, especially if on their paths to become dive professionals, care about safety. As an instructor working in diving in Asia for a few years, I've had to threaten to refuse divers next time I would be put on a boat with no oxygen and even had to resign once due to absence of basic safety requirements. One of these shops was even a very large and very reputed dive center (don't ask which one)... which is frankly scary!

As a diveshop manager in South-East Asia, I am always impressed by the lack of questions we receive from potential divers regarding safety standards and protocols. The focus always seems to be on price and availability. I still abide by my (Western) standards, but divers' lack of interest for safety almost makes it understandable that some dive center managers move their own focus away from safety, even if it is really sad and potentially dangerous.

Yes, there are dive centres in SE Asia that never seem to do a basic visual inspection on their tanks.
Yes, there are dive centres in SE Asia that change their tiny filtration cartridges only once every 20 to 30 hours when Bauer recommends changing them every 5 hours.
Yes, there are dive centres in SE Asia that will send their divers on any boat as long as renting a third party boat is cheap.
Yes, there are dive centres in SE Asia that never carry oxygen on dive trips.

However, there are also dive centres in SE Asia that respect safety, standards and protocols. At the end of the day, it is up to divers to find out which dive centres do abide by basic rules in countries where the legal context is far from rigid and reward these dive operators by diving with them, rather than merely focusing on cheap prices... We all know the old adage: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!

 

[Crowley]

Agree with a lot of the above.

Having worked in SE Asia (Thailand and Indonesia) I would say that it's not uncommon to find dive centres that are lax in all areas of safety - from training standards to poor equipment maintenance - but employees get faced with this dilemma of knowing that if they report anything they will lose their livelihoods, and the authorities are not necessarily as interested as they might be in other countries (I think that's me being very polite there!)

When it comes to the safety of the tank, and given the hundreds of thousands of tanks out there - a 10 year old tank is - statistically speaking - probably not going to explode, with or without an in-date hydro - and hydro testing standards vary between 3 and 5 years, depending on location. However, as other posters have pointed out, it does raise concerns about other safety standards they might be breaching. Are the regulators services correctly at appropriate intervals? Are the tanks inspected, cleaned and serviced properly (which is in some respects rather a lot more important than the hydro itself), is the compressor serviced and maintained correctly, are the filters changed at appropriate intervals? And so on and so forth.

Gekodivebali (who I sort of know vicariously - did we ever meet?) also raises a point about divers not checking safety standards but I would also raise the point that not all divers know what the safety standards are, something I try to impress on as many people as possible in terms of the need for asking if first aid and oxygen are available, are there service certificates on the dive centre walls or so on.

In terms of what you can do to report the issue? Difficult - but if you're in an environment where there are other dive centres that adhere more stringently to safety guidelines then one suggestion is to maybe talk to one of them and see if they have the ability to raise standards violations with the authorities. It's a very cut-throat market out there and all too often, nothing gets done until something goes wrong.

I've still got some friends over in Thailand so if you want to PM me the name and location of the dive centre, I'll see if I know anybody in the area who might have better information.

Cheers

C.

 

[gekodivebali]

It is difficult for divers to ask questions about safety even if they know standards. People feel shy or fear that a dive instructor may react harshly if they inquire about safety standards. Working in this part of the world where there are many one man shops that don't even own their own compressors or boats and therefore cannot even control any kind of safety standard, I try to instil the need for scrutinising safety at prospective dive centres in my students. I often tell divers to ask to see the oxygen tank, to ask about the dive boats being used when heading to offshore sites and to inspect rental equipment themselves. Now, I'm sure very few of my students do end up doing any of this and instead just enquire about pricing or try to get a discount at a less regarding shop!

Marc: I do not think we've met, but I've been collaborating with two fish on technical diving and safaris and Laurent from Lembongan is a friend... Are you still in Lembongan btw?

 

[Keith.M]

I know our dive shop that I worked on didn't stamp it when it was checked, but all the valves were written on with a different coloured paint pen every year.

Did you really just join last month and decided that user name was just so cool?