BSAC avoids annual VIP

[tbone1004]

@MaxE the transport rules are more for DM's/Instructors transporting students tanks vs. an individual renting for themselves.

@kelemvor once you cross 1000lbs, it is automatically considered commercial and the driver must have a CDL with hazmat endorsement, manifest, blah blah blah

 

[kelemvor]

@MaxE the transport rules are more for DM's/Instructors transporting students tanks vs. an individual renting for themselves.

@kelemvor once you cross 1000lbs, it is automatically considered commercial and the driver must have a CDL with hazmat endorsement, manifest, blah blah blah

weight or psi?

I thought we discussed the DOT requirements ad nausium in another thread and decided non-commercial you were pretty much good to go. Commercial (like an instructor) you might be screwed.

 

[tbone1004]

@kelemvor gross weight. Tank+valve+gas inside. It's thoroughly annoying for cave diving with multiple people

 

[kelemvor]

@kelemvor gross weight. Tank+valve+gas inside. It's thoroughly annoying for cave diving with multiple people

Yeah I guess it wouldn't take too much..tanks, lead, scooters, backplates, other misc stuff. I could reasonably see 4 people having more than 1,000 lbs of gear.

 

[tbone1004]

@kelemvor gross weight of tanks, not of everything else. For @victorzamora and I, we average ~400lbs of dive gear for a "normal" cave dive. CCR, stages, deco bottles, DPV, etc. ~250lbs for each of us is in the tanks with 2x steel mains, and 4x AL80's.

I was going to put cascade bottles in my dive trailer, but at 200lbs each, the 1000lbs is eaten up by just the tanks required for the 4 of us to go dive so there is no way to legally put the cascade bottles in there

 

[MaxE]

@MaxE the transport rules are more for DM's/Instructors transporting students tanks vs. an individual renting for themselves.

@kelemvor once you cross 1000lbs, it is automatically considered commercial and the driver must have a CDL with hazmat endorsement, manifest, blah blah blah

@tbone1004
I think you mean 10,000 lbs. you can drive a truck with GVW under 26,000 with a class “C” license, which is not exactly a CDL. Above that you must have a CDL and all that goes along with that.

Look at the back of a license it will clearly state as much. I have a Louisiana license and we do things differently here. When I tried to transfer a class C down here they all set to give me a CDL but did not want all that goes with it. So I have a chauffeur’s license which gives me the less than 26k lbs ability.

 

[JackD342]

@tbone1004
I think you mean 10,000 lbs. you can drive a truck with GVW under 26,000 with a class “C” license, which is not exactly a CDL. Above that you must have a CDL and all that goes along with that.

No. The 1,000 pounds is not vehicle weight, it is hazmat cargo weight. Weight of Compressed Air, including cylinder and valve.

 

[2airishuman]

Let's say you own a dive shop, and you tell your employees not to fill any tank that comes in without a current one-year VIS sticker. Then you hear that this really isn't necessary--people in the UK are now going 5 years. Even though it is an industry standard to do it every year, you decide that, by golly, the people in the UK are right--5 years is good. That becomes your shop rule.

So, a tank that is three years past its last visual inspection explodes, and your employee is killed. You will be sued, and you will have to defend your decision to allow your employee to fill that tank even though the industry standard says he should not have done so. If it were in the UK, you could point to an official document to justify your opinion, but in the USA....

I'm going to play the devil's advocate and point out that any shop that fills a cylinder which subsequently explodes is going to be threatened with a lawsuit regardless of the facts and regardless of their VIP policy. The whole thing will get settled by their insurance out of court, details will be confidential, and they may or may not be able to get insurance in the future at reasonable rates.

It will be interesting to see whether shops and dive ops with large inventories of rental cylinders continue to inspect them.

 

[2airishuman]

I’m not trying to be a smart ass or doubt the correctness of what you have said. But 1, the tanks do have a DOT stamp, and we should assume they are in hydro. Your statement and others about the pressure threshold would then include grandpas o2 cylinder, billy bob’s bbq tank, joe the welders set up strapped to the rack on the back of his pick-up, and the boy scouts who just went to Walmart for some of the green gas cans for their camping stove. I’m never surprised by the ability of humankind to have stupid rules, regulations, and laws. I do however find that generally there are exceptions to deal with what would be common conflicts with these regulations, either expressly stated in the regulation or through practical administration of the requlation. In this case I would still think enforcement would be limited to transport for commercial purposes.

That is why there's an exception for up to 440 pounds of MOT (materials of trade), and an exception for items that are not "in commerce."

https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/docs/MOTS brochure 2007_10_02.pdf

 

[KenGordon]

Oh come on now. Seriously?

My wife and I run 9 steels each, they all get at least 2 fills per month. The annual vis is no more hassle then dropping off the tanks for the fill as usual and paying a little more on collection. Our test dates are staggered so all don't require testing at once.

I agree that actual cylinder failure is rare, but this action isn't about safety, even though BSAC like to suggest that they support divers with the highest quality of safety recommendation (quoted from their Linked In page). This is all about trying to increase their membership by reducing annual dive expenditure.

Just for peace of mind an annual vis is better than a 2.5 year, at least if your cylinder does have some corrosion it can be more easily stopped and the cylinder recovered, where as with lengthy inspections not so much.

It is not the cost, it is the hassle. It is not a five minute job so is not done while you wait. The bailouts are the worst since the cylinders perform a set purpose and have a more or less fixed mix. A random 15 can be replaced by another random 15 but an 11 Ali of 16/45 can’t replace one of 80%.