GrumpyOldGuy
Contributor
What is insane is having someone service your completely functional regulator annually and subjecting it to the introduction of service errors and defective parts which can result in fairly serious problems just to prevent your regulator performance from degrading or to prevent the inconvenience of a small leak.
A regulator is a lot more like a kitchen faucet than a passenger airliner. Do you wait for your kitchen faucet to develop a leak before you replace the seals?
If a diver is unwilling to spend $25 for an IP gauge and learn to do frequent inspections of their regulator, along with good care and cleaning; then they may have little choice but to follow the manufacturers' recommendations for keep their LDSs in business. But, the diver does have options.
The irony is many people and manufactures consider annual service the same as inspection as a single issue and put them on the same schedule, yet they are 2 different animals.
The resulting annual cycle is too long between inspections and too short between major service for most, neither is optimal for the diver but easy to teach and profitable for the service provider. +1 for an IP and learning basic inspection.