Filling Air into a "Nitrox" Tank ILLEGAL?

[ekewaka]

Just use one of these on your cylinders:

http://www.airspeedpress.com/stickers2.html

I like the "This is not your tank" stickers.

 

[texdiveguy]

I like the "This is not your tank" stickers.

Yep these are great....I use them on my cylinders.....covers it all.

 

[Rick Inman]

I have the solution.

In front of the guy, I would have opened the isolator valve and let the tanks equalize, closed the valve, then asked for a fill again in the sticker-less tank. Then open and equalize, close, and ask again, and repeat until the tanks are full. If they charge for every fill it should only cost about $100.00 for an air fill.
:shakehead

 

[mderrick]

[

Consequently, it is not at all unreasonable to expect what amounts to a "21% Nitrox" fill at a shop that sells nitrox. A "21% Nitrox" fill also should not cost more than an "Air" fill from the same shop. The additional cost for Nitrox comes from the cost of introducing the additional oxygen, not from the minimal cost of the additional filtering which is most likely already being done to their regular "air".

Can't let this one go unchallenged. It's just not correct. The cost of OCA air fill in my operation is the same as Nitrox because MOST of the cost is in the OCA filtration and subsquent differences in handling, not the oxygen.

In a non-Nitrox fill operation, the fill station operator should not fill any cylinder labeled as being oxygen clean... as their gas is not oxygen compatible. The big yellow nitrox label is not meaningful, the label (probably the VIP decal) that indicates the cylinder is oxygen service (or nitrox ready, or cleaned for nitrox service or... or ... ) is what matters. Want an air fill in your cylinder from a non-nitrox shop, then they are perfectly justified (probably many fill station operators would say they are obligated) to scrape off the decals, perform an inspection, and then put their own VIP decal (that will say nothing about nitrox or oxygen service although more recently many recent designs will actally explicitly state they are air only or NOT for oxygen service) and charge for a VIP.

In a partial pressure blending Nitrox enabled shop, requesting an 'air' fill normally implies that the nitrox cylinder will be handled as an ordinary air fill.... also a bad idea. This is not 'just because of the grade E contamination issue, but also because the 'air' fill station part of their opertion will have policies and procedures that would be confused by introducing a nitrox labeled cylinder into the system. So IMO, it's a valid and appropriate response from any shop to state 'no, we won't provide an air fill in a nitrox cylinder'. If someone wants to 'downgrade' their oxygen service nitrox cylinder to air only service, they can always scrape all the labels themselves and present the cylinder for an ordinary VIP.

In a partial pressure blending Nitrox enabled shop, they certainly have an option to offer a 21% nitrox fill, using the same gas systems and proceedures and analyzers and logs as they would any other nitrox fill. The small incremental cost of not actually putting the oxygen in the cylinder not withstanding, the shop is certainly justified in charging the same rate as for any other EAN fill. But in my experience, very few customers understand the difference between a 'Nitrox 21' fill, and 'Air' fill. Given the amount of time wasted explaiining the difference, training fill station operators, etc I can certainly understand why plenty of shops would take the position that it's simpler, safer and lower cost to just say 'no, we won't provide an air fill in a nitrox cylinder'.

So what's really going on when someone asks for air in their Nitrox cylinder?

1) Perhaps they have found themselves in a shop that does not offer nitrox fills and they need to go diving.

2) Perhaps they believe they will save money by asking for relatively inexpensive air fill because they feel their diving plan does not justify the benefit of using Nitrox.

3) Perhaps they wish to perform a very deep air dive.

See your options above. Every partial pressure blending fill station operation surely HOPE's you will not suceed in getting a hydrocarbon enriched air fill in your cylinder.

Finally, this discussion does not expore the posibility that the shop is using a system that produces premix nitrox... such that the Nitrox they supply is only Grade E level cleanliness. There are a rapidly increasing number of such systems coming onlline.

In the case of Fill Express, I solved this complex issue by only offering only oxygen compatible grade gases for across the board. Although in some cases we initially produce and store grade 'E' gases, we later hyperfilter everything to oxygen compatible grade. In this way for sport nitrox and air fills, we don't care what the state of the oxygen cleanliness of the cylinder presented for a fill is because our fills won't change that state of cleanliness.

-- Mark

 

[daniel f aleman]

Thanks for your imputMark. As many know, Fill Express offers the industry standard.

Dan

 

[DiveSite]

.............. As many know, Fill Express offers the industry standard.
Dan

????????

 

[daniel f aleman]

Fill Express, read: http://www.fillexpress.com/fills.shtml

 

[DiveSite]

I've heard of Fill Express. I was just curious how one shop in Florida can be the "industry standard"

 

[Charlie99]

I went to Sport Chalet today to get my doubles filled. One of the two tanks had a NITROX sticker on it, which hasn't been a problem in the past. The genius that filled my tanks only filled one side (he shut off the isolation valve) stating that it was illegal to fill the tank labeled NITROX with air. He showed me a copy of an article that appeared in March, 2007 Northwest Diving News that stated on page 33 "It is illegal to thereafter fill that cylinder with air until the dedicated markings are removed."

I offered to remove the NITROX label, but was told that I would have to take it home, remove the label, then bring them in the next day. I thought it was silly to only fill one tank in a set of doubles.

I'm going to follow up to see what statute specifically states that bottles can only be filled with the media as labeled. Has anyone else heard of such a thing?

Steve

Are your doubles O2 clean?

Would you still consider them O2 clean if you HAD gotten an airfill of grade E air ?

 

[Azotino]

if you think that guy it was a fillmonkey ......what are you?????
Think about the reasons...if you leave the sticker on it.
What I know I don't want to refill any O²dedicates tanks contaminated with any hydrocarbons and etc :furious::furious::furious::furious::furious: