PCDC Storage bottle blows

[mike_s]

I doubt that most shops go to the effort to re-hydro their bank systems. It requires a lot of down time to disassemble, sent out for hydro, re-clean (as required), and re-assemble and fix any leaks in fittings caused by all of this.

 

[fisheyeview]

I would have to agree with you Mike. If I remember the case at Ocean Divers they at lease did yearly visuals on the banks, but the bottle that went could not be opened, so they let it go.

 

[fppf]

I totally disagree, shops don't get there banks hydro because of money or there lazy.
All you need to do is take 1 bottle out of service at a time and send it out. If you have 10 bottles in your bank, that's only one every 6 months. If you can't afford to loose one bottle of capacity at a time, buy one spare bottle for every 5 and keep rotating.

There are easy ways to do this stuff, its not hard, and its not rocket science.

 

[kgault]

I totally disagree, shops don't get there banks hydro because of money or there lazy.
All you need to do is take 1 bottle out of service at a time and send it out. If you have 10 bottles in your bank, that's only one every 6 months. If you can't afford to loose one bottle of capacity at a time, buy one spare bottle for every 5 and keep rotating.

There are easy ways to do this stuff, its not hard, and its not rocket science.

Have you ever tried to remove a single submarine ballast tank style bottle from a rack? These are the type of storage bottles that are the subject of this thread.

The Navy has this style of storage bottle inspected in place. I know of only 1 dive shop that has performed adequate inspection on this style of tank (to satisfy a government inspector) and it was done without moving the bottles.

Keith

 

[fppf]

Yes, I know exactly the type of cylinder that was in use, and I don't agree in using them because dive shops do not ever have them inspected. Most inspection techniques for these cylinders are very costly because yes they need to be done in place. And yes, when you only have one huge cylinder you loose total use.

However, the majority of shops out there use a cascade of "T" cylinders, or others of that size with higher working pressures. Which are easy and cheap to get tested. They are also modular so you don't loose your whole bank.

 

[jviehe]

Well gee, do we want to save a little time and money, or get sued when someone gets hurt and lose the shop? If you are going to own a dive shop you better be prepared to run it right. And that means making sure your tanks dont explode. It seems we have too many casually run dive shops out there.

Personally, when I worked at a dive shop, I was scared everytime I had to fill a tank, standing right over its questionably inspected metal, with no protection, turning on some old compressor, connected to never maintained hoses and such.

 

[fisheyeview]

Have you ever seen a whip line go? It happened in a shop I was working in. Luckily no one was hurt, but it sliced through the wall like a hot knife through butter.

 

[mike_s]

well it didn't take long for CDNN to plagiarize the story and put an exact copy of it up on their website and change the authors name to someone from CDNN.

 

[kgault]

Well gee, do we want to save a little time and money, or get sued when someone gets hurt and lose the shop? If you are going to own a dive shop you better be prepared to run it right. And that means making sure your tanks dont explode. It seems we have too many casually run dive shops out there.

Personally, when I worked at a dive shop, I was scared everytime I had to fill a tank, standing right over its questionably inspected metal, with no protection, turning on some old compressor, connected to never maintained hoses and such.

When divers start putting their money where their mouth is and only get fills from shops that perform all required maintenance, then these shops will have an incentive to perform the maintenance, as well as be able to afford to perform this same maintenance

The shops that are still in business are those that have performed the cost benefit analysis and choose the maintenance to perform based upon what they can afford to do (or less) while remaining profitable. This is similar to the trade off the auto industry evaluates for safety recalls vs lawsuits.

We as divers set the level of safety in the Industry that supports our hobby/sport.

The list of dive shops that perform all required maintenance and meet OSHA, etc guidelines will be very short.

Keith

 

[Doc Harry]

Have you ever seen a whip line go? It happened in a shop I was working in. Luckily no one was hurt, but it sliced through the wall like a hot knife through butter.

Why do you think it's called a whip?