Make sure you breath in when you check your SPG

[Pennekamp Fan]

Just to clarify a few things:

To Shakadoug: I was certified in 1970 when we didn't have SPGs so I wasn't "trained " to check my tank pressure while breathing.

I normally set up my own gear but some dive operators really want to set it up for you. I thought my personal pre-check was thorough but have obviously changed my mental checklist. My learnings should have included to personally check that the tank valve is properly open. Don't trust anyone but yourself to verify the proper setup of your own gear.

 

[dbush]

Well, I guess I forgot to mention that the best & primary method of making sure your valves are open it to actually check them yourself! The huff & puff check is a secondary check for valve position (it is also a primary check for reg funtionality, and therefore serves two purposes). If you can get a double check for minimal effort (just looking at your guage while doing a reg functionality check) then why not?

Oddly enough, I don't think I was ever taught it and only came to learn it through experience. I suspect I am not alone in that respect since I don't see everybody doing it.

 

[Cacia]

Also, for those diving an air integrated and no SPG the polling interval *might* be such that you don't notice a pressure change.

Yikes...had not thought about that.

Yes...this just happened to me around 65-70 ft, except the door closed and I got zip air. (CESA....okay) What a shocker...again..someone had shut me down from my open and checked position as I strode off the boat...he admitted to doing it...I never even felt it. My hoses were charged so I was pretty deep before the air delivery stopped......I was just very "***???" when it occurred..couldn't imagine the cause.

wow...acronyms filtered out? Thats not PG13...thats G.

 

[JeffG]

wow...acronyms filtered out?

Just the "bad" ones.

 

[Cacia]

well, how do they even know them?

I barely know them...and I am always looking for new ones. (so that I have something constructive to think when my air ceases)

Come on...cursing can be helpful.

 

[Benny-c]

Folks, That's what the BUDDY CHECK is for

B=BCD
W=weight
R=releases
A=Air Supply
F=Final OK

It's in the PADI OW Book

 

[TxHockeyGuy]

Well, I guess I forgot to mention that the best & primary method of making sure your valves are open it to actually check them yourself! The huff & puff check is a secondary check for valve position (it is also a primary check for reg funtionality, and therefore serves two purposes). If you can get a double check for minimal effort (just looking at your guage while doing a reg functionality check) then why not?

Oddly enough, I don't think I was ever taught it and only came to learn it through experience. I suspect I am not alone in that respect since I don't see everybody doing it.

I think double checks are great. But I also wish they would stop teaching people to turn their valve back 1/4 turn. I understand the reason this is taught but with modern valves it isn't nearly as relevant. If you have your valve fully closed on accident you will notice this much quicker, and much shallower, than if you had it 1/4 open. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Divmstr223]

this very thing happened to me last weekend...although I received a steady flow of air the entire time. I turned my air on all the way with a quarter turn back, threw on my B.C. and waited while my buddy was gearing up. A few minutes had passed and my short term memory made me doubt whether I ever turned it on to begin with..lol. I asked my other buddy to check it...He proceeded to do so and turned the valve all the way "on"; told me it was off....

We got back from the dive, I geared down and proceeded to turn the valve off....which only took me a quarter turn to turn off...

The moral of the story..make sure your buddy knows the term "Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosy"

I guess a quarter turn/ half turn back was enough air as it turned out....

We had a good laugh about it..

 

[Sirto]

I had an unsettling experience on a dive a few months ago, It was a shore dive and everything was ok in the beginning but after a while I noticed a definite resistance when drawing a breath. I checked my gage while inhaling and saw the pressure drop from 2000+ psi to less than 500! I quickly turned to my wife and signalled that I was having a regulator problem and asked her to check that the valve was fully open. She went around behind me but on my next breath I got nothing and the pressure dropped to zero. Assuming that the octopus would not help since the pressure read 0 I gave the out of air signal and started breathing through her octo. We surfaced and started swimming in to shore. I figured that I had a failure of my first stage.

Suddenly a thought occured to me and I asked her to turn the valve the other way. Sure enough the pressure came back.

Lessons learned:
1 - Be careful when openning your valve that you open it fully
2 - Understand that my wife just doesn't get the whole righty tighty thing and
3 - NEVER let her touch my valve while under water

Hope she doesn't read this.

 

[drbill]

I ask DM's not to touch my valves when I'm diving on their boats. I had one turn my valve off just before I jumped in (she thought she was turning it on) and others open my opny bottle valve when I like to keep it closed. That way I'M responsible if anything goes wrong.