Dry Suit Problem what to do?

[ivan73]

Hi,

After one year of no diving I went back to lake diving ... easy, 5m check material, everything's ok, my mojo also very good. Continued to 20m ... very nice, everything's cool, I liked my trim (exercising for the GUE-F) and then after 25 min I felt uncomfortable ... I couldn't maintain the trim as I did till then. Empty the wing ... nothing, tell the dive leader I don't feel comfortable and we started a slow ascent which started to be painful. Then I noticed I can't free the air from my dry suit ... the leader forced a bit more the exit valve (and probably made more damage but ok I'll go tomorrow to repair).

Then the ascent started to be really painful (you can imagine) ... putting the extra weight from the leader, grabbing stones etc. etc. Well we managed to respect safety stops but I finished my bottle (not a big problem just to say I breath like someone in panic, although I was really very calm, I mean tried to find a solution).

When out I've put the max air in the dry suit and the valve worked. What I think that happened is that the underwear blocked the valve (is this logical?). So finally my question is WHAT TO DO IN THIS SITUATION? Ok I didn't have a chain or something to grab where I could put a lot of air to liberate the valve (this came to me as a solution once I was out).

The dry suit is TLS350 and I'm really kind a new in dry suit diving (around 10 dives). I thank you in advance for you council.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

[Teamcasa]

An undergarment can block the valve and usually a shifting or tilting of the valve will break the seal and allow it to vent. In a severe case of not venting, I'd go vertical and burp the neck or raise and arm and burb the air through my wrist seal.

I'd look into a different top (undergarment) if that really was the case.

 

[Diver0001]

well..

I think we could use a few more details.

please describe your undersuit and please describe how you tried to vent air from the suit, especially once you noticed you had a problem.

R..

 

[fisheater]

The undergarment blocking hypothesis is likely correct. Some folks sew a smooth piece of cloth on their undergarment under the exhaust valve. I'd also have my valve professionally serviced.

As to how to react to a re-occurance, you can vent your drysuit by pulling on a neck or wrist seal. You'll get wet, but you'll be able to prevent a runaway ascent.

 

[Randy43068]

or use a swatch of duct tape on the garment. I find it difficult to believe a modern exhaust valve is being blocked unless the garment is really floppy where it meets the valve.

 

[Diver0001]

When out I've put the max air in the dry suit and the valve worked.

Just rereading this, I think another distinct possibility is that the rubber seal of the valve could have been sticking to the housing and had sort of glued itself shut. This easily happens, especially if the suit was used in salt water and not properly rinsed after the last time it was used.

The op did say that he hadn't used the suit in a year.

R..

 

[ivan73]

Thanks for fast responses.

The undergarment is a weezle extreme+ ... I've tried dui 400 but I just had to put twice the weights to go down (from 9 kg with weezle to 18kg!!!! with dui).

I haven't tried nothing intelligent, just raising my arm hoping that the air will exit (as I said the possibility of undergarment blocking the valve appeared to me once I was out) ... I couldn't reach my neck seal ... I had a warm neck hood (DUI), no way I could reach the seal . But that's the thing I should have done ... thanks for this info ... as I said I'm really new to dry suits.

Ivan

P.S: Correct my last dive was in salt walter ... tried to clean it as good as possible but your guess might be very possible. But then I've tried it on the ground a day before I went diving, it was working and it was also working when i entered the water (25 min of diving, extra air exited without problem when going down).

 

[elan]

I haven't tried nothing intelligent, just raising my arm hoping that the air will exit (as I said the possibility of undergarment blocking the valve appeared to me once I was out) ... I couldn't reach my neck seal ... I had a warm neck hood (DUI), no way I could reach the seal . But that's the thing I should have done ... thanks for this info ... as I said I'm really new to dry suits.

Just pull the warm collar and you can reach the seal.

Or just dump it through the wrist seal , if you use dry gloves just force the air into the glove than carefully unseat it, the air will escape. Even if you flood the glove it supposed to keep your warm if you have the proper liner.

 

[ivan73]

I'm using Zip-seals for gloves, I have really to work it to remove this things event without gloves, with gloves never tried but I think possibility to manage that operation very close to 0.

The neck seal is the way to go, I'll do it next time (hoping that there won't be next time).

Ivan

 

[ianr33]

The undergarment is a weezle extreme+

I have heard this can be a problem with the Weezle.

Easy fix is to put some duct tape on the undergarment in the area thats beneath the valve.