DIR Hoses

[smorneau]

I am switching up some hoses on my rig and was thinking of replacing my inflater/drysuit and my bungeed reg with phantom or milflex hoses. What is the DIR standard on this? I think it will make packing for travel easier. I know they may float a little so my 7' hose will remain rubber.
Thanks

 

[Adobo]

I asked a very similar question to GUE instructor recently (not sure if his answer is considered DIR but it sounded sensible to me).

His answer was that he had been using the regular hoses for ~20 years. And while he has had some issues with these hoses that started small and were presumably going to get worse over time, he was able to easily find and resolve the issues in between dives.

He also said that he did not have any extensive experience on miflex hoses. Having said that, he did not know of any compelling reasons to adopt miflex hoses (not solving any particular problem) and doing so would potentially introduce a new problem (the braid itself might mask small problems that might get worse before the problem can be identified).

Personally, I have travelled some with regs and hoses and such. I never found regular hoses to be a burden in terms of the space they used up.

 

[decompression]

The UTD/DIR view is.....just think it through, if it works, do it. After replacing all my hoses for BM and SM, doubles and singles the only hose that I went back to was the long hose. Rubber just deploys and stows easier.

 

[zider]

I changed my backup second stage to miflex earlier this year and it curves around my neck much more easily. I wish I would have done it sooner.

 

[TSandM]

I like AG's approach to this kind of issue. This is not a team problem. Unless the hoses are proven (as the Miflex HP hoses are) to be a failure risk, it's your own choice what you want to use. It's my opinion that the braided 7' hoses are a pain to handle in an air-share, and I might object to a teammate adopting them. But it may well be that, especially in the case of regulators that require an abrupt bend for hose routing, that the braided hoses might be under LESS strain in that circumstance, and might be a better choice. At any rate, I'm going to let my teammates make those decisions, except for the 7' hose and the HP hoses.

 

[decompression]

As Lynne said the Miflex HP hoses are under recall and recently the phantom HP's as well. I slowly swapped (first travel regs, then SM, then BM doubles). I was at UTD HQ when I tried the miflex long hose, Jeff S was observant but let me play with it for awhile. I gave it a chance in case it was overcoming muscle memory but it just didn't work as well as rubber(repeated deploy and stows).That said, I still have the miflex long hose on my travel SM regs.

 

[ucfdiver]

The UTD/DIR view is.....just think it through, if it works, do it. After replacing all my hoses for BM and SM, doubles and singles the only hose that I went back to was the long hose. Rubber just deploys and stows easier.

Might want to replace those HP hoses...

 

[Scott L]

Selecting equipment with travel weight in mind is foolish IMO. Enough equipment can be carried on, such as back plates, regs and hoses to make lightening one's kit unnecessary...

 

[50Fathom]

I use Miflex for my backup and wing inflation hoses. Rubber for HP and 7'. I also played with Miflex for 40" stage LP hoses, but it was too floaty, so back to rubber for them too.

 

[Adobo]

Come on guys. Really? After thinking it through, some of you are concluding that the best solution is to have half your hoses to be rubber and the other half to be miflex?

Tell me again, what problem are you solving having your inflator hose and your back up reg LP hose to be miflex?

I don't personally care if people I don't dive with use miflex or not but if we are going to offer advice to other people, it would be good if we provide some rationale as to why we are giving the advice that we are.