Attached Hood on 7mm Suit?

[reefugee]

I have a Bare 7mm Alpine hooded wetsuit. The wetsuit zips up in the front, and then across the chin. Anwyay - I like it because I can suit up, but leave the hood off. I put the hood on at the last minute.

The only disadvantage of this suit is that the zipper in on your chin, which takes a little of getting used to.

Minh

 

[miketsp]

Integral hoods are a real pain because they offer no flexibility - in terms of adapting thickness to diving conditions and the neck seal tends to seal less well than with a separate hood.

I dive a semi-dry suit with a separate hood and the latex neck seal is just like a dry suit. There is then a slot in the suit that the tubular neck section of the hood fits into. So in fact there are effectively 2 layers of latex and 3 layers of neoprene around my neck which makes for a perfect neck seal.

My wife uses a semi-dry suit with an integrated hood and the neck seal is nothing like as perfect as mine when she lifts the hood a little to let water get to her ears she immediately got a trickle down the neck. Plus the rigidity of the suit together with the poorer fitting neck arrangement meant that when she turned her head a lot the hood would twist and push the mask out of place breaking the seal.
So we ended up paying to replace the existing 7mm integral hood with a thinner 3mm tighter fitting more flexible integral hood. This newer hood never shifts on the head and although it's thinner total heat loss actually improved due to the improved neck fit.

 

[BOBBYR]

I was looking at the Bare Velocity step in hood/vest as well. My only concern is that zipper across the neck and chin. Is it really that noticable?

 

[reefugee]

Bibbyr -

Yes - it is really THAT noticeable. At first - it was a real annoyance feeling the zipper on my chin. But after awhile you get used to it. Like I said earlier - I do like how I can leave the hood section unzipped and leave my hood off until the last minute. When shore diving, I zip up my hood after I have entered the water and put on my fins. So there are pros and cons to the zipper across the chin hood.

Minh

 

[Cheekymonkey]

Thats a nice point reefugee, never thought of that.