bcd question: Is not having an extra dump valve a bad thing?

[Mark Vlahos]

Your message is a little unclear about the BC you actually bought. Does your BC have a fitting that is covered with a cap where the lower dump valve should be, or is the area in question simply a sea of fabric? If there is a place to fit a dump valve you can probably get the valve fairly inexpensively, perhaps even for free as good faith effort from the local dive shop to account for the price mixup. I agree with the others that having a lower dump is a good idea.

Welcome to the world of diving, dive often to keep your skills up!

Mark Vlahos

 

[OE2X]

A shoulder dump valve and a rear dump valve is all you need. I prefer to keep my dump valves on the left side of my bcd/bpw. I've found that it simplies my task loading if I control my bouyancy with the same hand. Also when I'm taking photos and I need to let out just a little bit of air I can do it and still take the picture with my right hand at the same time.
On another note I found myself diving with an inexperienced diver who had his dump valve on his right side. He needed to dump air in a bad way. I swam up to him and had to wrestle to find his rear dump valve. I fully expected it to be on his left side, but no. 25 feet of ascending later we had the issue taken care of. We then spent the rest of dive doing bouyancy drills.

 

[hantzu701]

I'm in the camp that less is more.

When you first start out, I think it is easy to get carried away with the equipment. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that 1) something that is more expensive is always going to be better than something cheaper, and 2) if the store has it, then you must need it.

The real question is do you need four different ways to vent your BCD? It may look nice in the store, but are you really going to use it that way in the water?

Another question to consider is whether the additional dump valves add functionality. Personally, I see the additional dump valves as additional failure points. Often, I'll see a diver gearing up and get tangled up. The pull knob on the valve might be trapped under a strap or entangled in a dangling compass or clipboard. This means that the diver can't get at the knob when he/she wants to and the valve could be "stuck" open. This is quickly resolved by an alert buddy, but I'm surprised how often this occurs.

 

[TX101]

Im surprised noone has yet told you to get your money back and buy a bp/w

All the people who say you can't live without a rear dump valve obviously dive a wetsuit.

In a drysuit, you dont have a rear dump valve. You do some training to make sure that you dont get into a situation where you would need one. If you get into an upside down ascent, just kick down. You have to seriously f--- up to get so uncontrolled that this wont work.

I dive a diverite classic wing with twin steel cylinders. I've never used my rear dump valve.

 

[herman]

I am going to go against the trend. All my BC's have rear dump valves and I never use any of them. If you are correctly weighted and trimmed, there is no need to use it that I have seen. At worst, you have to tilt your sholder up a bit to get the shoulder dump at the right position. So, IMO you don't need one. You also said that the lesser priced BC had fewer D ring and less lift. You may well have done yourself a big favor by accident. May people dive with way too much lift and God only knows what those 25 D rings are for.

 

[OE2X]

Im surprised noone has yet told you to get your money back and buy a bp/w

All the people who say you can't live without a rear dump valve obviously dive a wetsuit.

In a drysuit, you dont have a rear dump valve. You do some training to make sure that you dont get into a situation where you would need one. If you get into an upside down ascent, just kick down. You have to seriously f--- up to get so uncontrolled that this wont work.

I dive a diverite classic wing with twin steel cylinders. I've never used my rear dump valve.

This is an interesting idea. Personally I dive with a drysuit most of the time. The rear dump valve is found on the BCD or BPW not on the drysuit. There are certain models of drysuits that have an ankle dump to prevent an uncontrolled ascent but I've never seen one placed on the butt.

When not diving dry, I'm in tropical waters. I have found that on every dive the only time use my inflator dump is when I'm leaving the surface. I don't use my drysuit as a BC so the only time I get into a slightly heads up position is to purge air from my suit. The rest of the time on my ascent I am horizontal and find it much more effective to control speed by going head down and using my BPW's rear dump valve.

As to your premise about just kicking down in an uncontrolled ascent see my earlier post about the buddy whose BCD's rear dump I had to locate. He was heads down kicking very hard to descend. It was not working and as he rose towards the surface this became progressively harder. He could not vent his BC from his inflator hose because he was kicking (heads down) towards the bottom. Since he was a new diver in a drysuit things rapidly were getting out of control. It was all I could do to catch him, find the rear dump valve and make him go negative. While we only ascended 25' or so, it was still enough of a wake up call for him to learn how to use his BCD'srear dump valve.