cost of drysuit maintenance?

[ocean owl]

2) Drysuit undies - unless you are diving somewhere that's not particularly cold and could layer sweats and the like underneath. Paula

Thanks everybody for all of these great comments!
A Few More Questions....

About the UNDIES. Friends of mine have full-body fleece suits made for diving. I'm thinking I can get away wearing the polypropylene and fleece tops/bottoms I use for backpacking? Is this foolishness?

About the LEAKS. If you had a 'catastrophic leak' with a real hole in a shell-type suit, wouldn't you fill up with water, suffer shock from the sudden cold-water immersion, and then have difficulty surfacing? Admittedly unlikely, but do people survive this? This makes me lean toward a neoprene drysuit (regular neoprene, not the snazzy compressed neoprene).

I have been a steadfast wetsuit diver (7ml farmer john/longsleeve top with short legs), but when it drops below 9 degrees C / 48 degrees F, one can only use the "suit-warmer" so many times in a dive and then go home with lots of air left. A new wetsuit will probably do it (this one shows wrinkles so the neoprene might be compressed), but a new wetsuit and a used drysuit aren't so different in price. There seem to be a lot of used suits in my size (short and scrawny).

 

[MarkH]

One hint for shopping for a bargain basement used drysuit is to carefully check the zipper. Make sure there are no missing/falling off teeth and the rubber part of the zipper is not too chewed up. If there are holes in the rest of the suit, they are easy and cheap to fix with a smear of aquaseal, but there's not much you can do with a busted zipper. All of my previous used drysuits were neoprene and even when they leaked, they were still alot warmer than my wetsuit and much easier to get in and out of.