Dry suit Maintenance

[chachee99]

I heard dry suits require a lot of maintenace over wet and semi-dry suits. I heard that you need to take extremely delicate with them because they can puncture easily. Therefore require their own separate bag. Also, is it true that dry suits can produce a foul smell due to sweat? How do you properly clean and dry a dry suit? What should be routinely done to keep dry suits in good condition? Especially zippers.

 

[TSandM]

It's nice to have a bag for your drysuit, but they are not as delicate as all that. You certainly can puncture them with contact with sharp or abrasive objects. All drysuits eventually develop small leaks, which you find and fix.

I have never noticed any odor from the inside of my drysuit. I do very occasionally turn it inside out and wash the inside, but that's just to make it easier to get in and out of. Otherwise, the suit gets rinsed with fresh water, and the inlet and dump valves get carefully rinsed. At intervals, I soak the dump valve in fresh water overnight. The zipper gets carefully rinsed, and gets lubricated with wax (hopefully before each dive, although I'm not that diligent). As the placket frays, I burn off the frays carefully with a small torch.

They are a bit more fragile and finicky than a wetsuit. But it's worth it.

 

[JBRES1]

My dry suit gets the same service my wet suit gets.

I dump the suit into a 50 gal. drum of fresh tap water with a little Johnsons Baby shampoo and let it soak for about an hour. I then hang it upside down to dry out.
I have a fan blowing on the suit for about 8 hours.
After it is dry I wax the zipper and then hang upright ready for next dive.

Now the bunny siut under the drysuit, that gets washed in the washer when it starts to smell.

Jim breslin