Gear returned from servicing with issue
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Eric Sedletzky
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I disagree with the notion that the customer is fully or partially responsible for quality of a service. The paid servicer is responsible, that’s what they got paid for. When you take your car in for brakes do you have to pull the wheels off and inspect everything the mechanic did to make sure they did it right? Most people wouldn’t know what to look for. Is it the customers responsibility to make sure the lug nuts are torqued correctly?, or do they need to recheck everything. They may not even know the specs.
Same with dive gear. Techs are being paid to do a job because they are the experts. Most divers wouldn’t know how tight hoses need to be, or how to adjust cracking pressure if a reg hisses, or how to do anything on a reg, that’s why they pay someone. Most shops don’t want the customer to know anyway. There should be a standard of quality and integrity that all shops adhere to when servicing gear. If something fails due to a bad service it is 100% the shops fault if the customer had nothing to do with why the reg failed (abuse, etc.)
Saying that part of the blame is on the customer is a complete cop out and denial of responsibility of the service shop IMO.
Same with dive gear. Techs are being paid to do a job because they are the experts. Most divers wouldn’t know how tight hoses need to be, or how to adjust cracking pressure if a reg hisses, or how to do anything on a reg, that’s why they pay someone. Most shops don’t want the customer to know anyway. There should be a standard of quality and integrity that all shops adhere to when servicing gear. If something fails due to a bad service it is 100% the shops fault if the customer had nothing to do with why the reg failed (abuse, etc.)
Saying that part of the blame is on the customer is a complete cop out and denial of responsibility of the service shop IMO.
The diver is responsible for checking their own equipment, serviced or not. It is essential that the diver checks the operation of their equipment prior to diving in ALL circumstances. This includes checking the valves in the drysuit, BC's etc. I teach my students in the entry level and advanced courses to check the BC valves in addition to checking the operation of the regulator and the tightness of the hoses. ALL straps, connectors, clips on ALL of the dive equipment must be checked. In fact, I dedicate half day to equipment care and maintenance in my advanced course in addition to other skills I teach.
This doesn't absolve the technician/repair center from their responsibilities at all but the user is responsible for their own safety including inspecting their own equipment and shouldn't put this particular/specific responsibility on somebody else. Again, you can ignore the diver's role in the circle and blame everything on the technician/LDS but if something is wrong, it is the diver who is going to get hurt. I prefer to be proactive and do my part to prevent injury or death to myself and not be passive and just expect others to care about me more than I do EVEN if they were paid to do it. It is my health, my life and my responsibility.
For the life of me, I truly can't believe that the OP jumped in the water with his drysuit without doing a full check or inspection of the suit including ALL valves after they came back from service. This is the perfect picture of complacency and dependency that hurts divers. I check EVERY single valve on my BC before every single dive and teach my students to do the same. I do the same to my own drysuit.
When I owned my dive center in NY, I had a big workshop with around 5 technicians working on the service of many brands and different types of equipment. They were highly trained technicians who had to go through several training programs and continuing education courses. I prepared a "pre-delivery" check list for them to use when they are done servicing any dive equipment especially regulators. They had to follow it and check everything and sign it at the end before getting in touch with the customer to tell them that their equipment is ready for pick up. I did random spot checks frequently on the "ready for pick up" rack when I come in the store in the morning to make sure that everyone was doing their job per rules and standards. The senior sales staff were trained to do another check and follow a written checklist before handing over the equipment to the customer. Some of the sales staff were trained on regulator service and VCI. Sales staff were also required to bring a filled Tank for the customer to test his equipment (regulator/BC) per a checklist before they left the store with their equipment.
Anyone that filled Tanks or had anything to do with compressed gas or compressor, had to take a two day training in addition to following a detailed check list that was posted by the compressor and fill station. If anyone didn't follow procedure, they had to deal with the dark side of my personality.
Although I am not going to say that we never had an issue with equipment that we serviced after it left my dive shop, I am very confident to say that we seldom had any issues with anything we serviced in-house after the client picked it up.
SlugLife
Contributor
I'm reminded of a personal story:
Story 1: A number of years ago, I had a modified car, which some bolts on the exhaust would work themselves loose after about 6-12 months. It was annoying to deal with, but took maybe 15 minutes, crawling under my lowered car, in hot/cold weather, on the pavement, etc, trying to get a good angle. On a lift, it would be a 2-minute job at most. One time I decided to just coat-wire it up, and drive to a local shop, and just ask them to deal with it. They said they'd have to give me a quote (weird) , and an hour later they told me "that'll be $800" me "It's just a couple bolts, I've done it before, and it takes me about $15 without a lift. Are you sure?" Them: "Yes, $800 to bolt it up." me: "Ok, I'm just going to go pick up my car." And sure enough, the job took me about 15 minutes.
Story 2: Back to scuba, I had an incident where a scuba-shop condemned a tank I brought in for VIP, because of the manufacture date. TLDR: There were about half-a-dozen things wrong with that story, and you can read the full story here. Now, I'm about 50/50 on whether I'll take the stupid VIP class, or just print some stickers, because pretty much everyone I talk to who has the VIP qualifications says it's a giant scam.
Anyway, my point being, if I know how to work on my car, regulators, BCD, etc .... then I'm just going to do it myself. And every time I get screwed, I often have to learn 25% to 50% of the job to double-check their work, which means I'm not that far off from learning how to do it myself.
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I'm curious to people's thoughts. Do people feel the following from PADI is sufficient knowledge for the OP to have checked the valves on his suit?
Or the following from SSI (available online)
Or the following from SSI (available online)
If a shop is repairing a dry suit for leaks then they damn well better do a leak or pressure test on it before they return it.
Check your work before calling it done. It is not that difficult a concept.
Oh you are preaching to the choir. We just have a dive pro here that claims to have run a dive center that blames the OP.
I absolutely disagree with his position for a number of reasons:
1) customer is paying for the work, the business is responsible to ensure that it is done (basically what you said)
2) the training materials provided by agencies about using a dry suit don't go into this detail. Nowhere do I read about instructors being required to go over checking valves
I think blaming the customer is a pathetic cop out.
However, I'm curious if people think I'm wrong with regards to customers after taking a dry suit course have sufficient knowledge to check their valves after work is done (though they shouldn't have to). If people can cite training materials showing how dry suit divers would have learned this, I'm willing to stand corrected. As it stands now, I don't see it.
There's too much quick and dirty here, and that's all on the business.
OP
I also just looked at the Bare drysuit manual. It does not mention any predive checks at all but does have this helpful? information:
D) VALVE CARE Both valves should be checked/serviced annually by a SI TECH/ APEKS approved service center.
VALVES PROBLEM: WET ARM(S), CHEST AND SHOULDER AREA, AND CROTCH
POSSIBLE CAUSE: • Valve not tightened securely to suit
...
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: • Tighten the valve to the suit by holding the outer section and turning (clockwise) the inner section
Which is what I did - more or less - I pressed the inner section against my arm and rotated the outer until tight.
Polling the group: has anyone seen valves come loose in normal use? Just wondering how often that happens since I've never seen that before on myself or the divers I was with.
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