Mounting tanks upside down

[Rick Murchison]

Aside from its dismissal as a "stroke" practice by "da bubbas," the valve down arrangement provides a more protected and easier to reach position for the valves when underwater than the valve up one does, even with wings (the valves are well below the wing so the wing doesn't get in the way - and yes, you can still easily reach the isolation valve).
On the down side, hoses have to be custom made, and their routing can be a pain. And once out of the water the valve down arrangement is a disaster waiting for a place to happen. Just getting the gear rigged in the first place is a major pain - basically you have to rig it upside down and then turn everything over without dinging the valves and regulators to get the stuff on. And if you slip and fall???
On the whole, unless you have your own boat you can rig for supporting your rig while you don it and get into the water, or you're willing to routinely put your system in the water first and then get into it, I think the disadvantages of the valve down system far outweigh the advantages.
Rick

 

[Northeastwrecks]

It seems to me that diving valves down creates more problems than it solves.

If you dive valve up, you can transport your rig easily. You don't need any special hoses and you'd really need to work to damage the reg sets or valves when donning or doffing. You don't need any special setups to transport.

On the downside, you need a drysuit (assuming dry diving) that propery fits. You also need to practice hitting the valves.

Valves down avoids the problem of hitting the valves. However, it creates an entirely new set that are not easily solved.

It hardly seems worth the trouble.

 

[CRESSIDVR9]

In the event anything goes wrong you should be able to take the BC off and fix the problem. If a diver cant do this they need to practice because somethings cant be solved without taking the BC off. Such as intanglements. Beside that you would have to buy longer hoses for your reg. If you bought a new reg you would have to buy new hoses too .

 

[Vixyswillie]

drbill once bubbled...
another thread on this same subject already running. Use search to find it.

Taking Dr. Bill's advice myself, I found this thread from last year, which contains a very thorough discussion of the subject. It also contains this article which discusses one individual's use of this configuration with twins - with a stainless steel valve guard, seen here.

 

[JCKCSYCMD]

I have over 30+ yrs of diving seen a few inverted configs, and yes it appeared to be fire fighters on rescue squads who were comfortable with it. In almost all instances the argumant had been valve and reg vulnerability. However, see the link in a couple other thread posts that shows a decent stainless steel guard. Would be interested in what the DIR crowd would say about this?

 

[jonnythan]

JCKCSYCMD once bubbled...
Would be interested in what the DIR crowd would say about this?

I think they'd say it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[Northeastwrecks]

I'm not a DIR guru. However, I'd say that it is an entanglement hazard that creates far more problems than it solves.

I really don't see the problem with upright valves. Practice until you can hit them. End of problem.

One of my buddies is a weight lifter with very large arms. He has problems hitting his valves. The solution was not to invert them. Instead, he loosens his waist strap and pulls the rig up.

This is not optimal; however, its far better than the alternative.

 

[LUBOLD8431]

Its such a ridiculous idea, i dont think its worth a reply, but here goes...

If you need to shut down a valve, you need to be able to reach them...

If you invert the rig, you have issues with hoses on your regs and inflators, now must be all custom...

If you invert the rig, you need to protect the manifold from damage when you are rigging up, and now the tanks are sitting on the manifold... Hence stainless steel guard, which by the way, is now a great place to get things snared on...

Also, in the pic posted earlier, the isolation manifold is sticking straight up when you are in the swimming position. This doesnt seem good to me for a number of reasons... One, entanglement hazerd... Two, it sits up there, and if you make contact with something, it is going to take a beating, and may get damaged...


All in all, it just doesnt work. Also, when you are diving with someone, you want them to have a similar configuration for emergencies. This is definitely not similar to the regular way to set your tanks up. So, you and your buddy would have to dive with inverted rigs...

Also, when you clip off stages to your sides, now, if you need to reach down and behind you to reach the valves, I think that would be tough.

We are not firefighters under water. We are carrying more than one cylinder. This inverted way just doesnt work...

Oh... and another thing, THE WHOLE REST OF THE WORLD DIVES WITH THE TANKS RIGHT SIDE UP...


THEY ARE ALL GOING TO LAUGH AT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Ok, ok, just kidding about the last part, LOL... But actually, kinda true, people will give you some funny looks...

 

[Cave Diver]

There are currently two other threads running on this topic.

Why dont we mount the tank upside down?

and

Mounting tanks valve side down

 

[Cave Diver]

drbill once bubbled...
another thread on this same subject already running. Use search to find it.

Dr. Bill

The current thread is Mounting tanks valve side down