Pre-heating a wet suit.

[mogwai]

Was diving yesterday, my first Nitrox dive, was actually snowing as we got in the water, if i could resize the damn picture i would show you the snow on the hills as i stand posing with them in the background. Anyway, second dive, some nice diver who had forgot most of his kit came over with a nice hot thermos of hot water. He had 'heard the screams' as we put our wetsuit hoods and neoprene gloves on he said laughingly. We dive in dry suits so only had to worry about hoods and gloves, but my was that warm water welcome.

New addition to Christmas list, several large thermos flasks, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

[devilfish]

Just because vasodialation has shut down the shivering mechanism and fools the diver to seem warmer, that does not mean the diver is warmer. May shiver less but body core temerature is still droping faster pushing larger quantity of cold blood into the core and hypthermia will occur sooner. But, to each its own.

 

[mogwai]

Was diving yesterday, my first Nitrox dive, was actually snowing as we got in the water, if i could resize the damn picture i would show you the snow on the hills as i stand posing with them in the background. Anyway, second dive, some nice diver who had forgot most of his kit came over with a nice hot thermos of hot water. He had 'heard the screams' as we put our wetsuit hoods and neoprene gloves on he said laughingly. We dive in dry suits so only had to worry about hoods and gloves, but my was that warm water welcome.

New addition to Christmas list, several large thermos flasks, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Yeah, got the bloody thing resized eventually, without losing all bloody definition. Want to see the snowy hills of Scotland check out my public profile picture.

 

[nwdiver2]

Use 5 gal jerry cans, plastic ones marked WATER ONLY. Fill with hot tap water in morning and store two or three together in trunk of car. They stay warm for a long time because of the thermal mass. Be careful as the water can be very hot even after 2-3 hours. We carry lots of water this way.

We have tried to fill a 68lt cooler full of water but it stayed too hot to use after a first dive 2-3 hours later, we did float bottles of soft apple cider in it which was a hit, hot apple cider after a dive heats from the inside out.

Do be careful that you don’t pour warm water in someone’s suit that may have hypothermia, that’s a big no no.

 

[randyjoy]

From Diving Medicine On-Line "Another Look at Hypothermia" by Dr. Jolie Bookspan

"WILL POURING WARM WATER IN YOUR DIVE SUIT HELP OR HURT?
On the whole, pouring warm water in your dry suit would enjoy a spectacular lack of success. On the other hand, (arm, leg) with wet suits it helps. Adding warm water to your wet suit is the principle behind hot water suits used commercially. You will not overheat or begin to vasodilate or sweat. That would occur only past a certain heat load that could not be reached from a few cups of warm fluid. The small heat load gained is that much more in the BTU bank for later when you're back in the water spending heat or trying to warm up between after diving."

 

[GERRY2153]

Once it cools i guess you could re heat by .....
aaaah never mind

 

[Don Burke]

What a brilliant idea, sounds so good, too bad it does not work.
A wet suit is not a hot water suit with a constant supply of hot water circulating. Pouring hot water into a wet suit causes perifial vasodialation. As soon as the hot water in the wet suit cools will result vasoconstriction. The cold water in the wet suit will cool the perifial blood pushing it back into the core, and as a result body core temperature will drop much more rapidly causing hypothermia. A diver's body core temperature will crash much faster than just diving in a good fitting wetsuit. The only way this would work if there was a constant flow of warm water circulating through the suit.

Nice use of vocabulary, but your physics falls flat on it's ass.

The idea is to preload the suit with warm water so the body doesn't have to warm up a bunch of cold water. That is where the thermal advantage comes from. The preloaded water largely stays within the suit.

I've had it work for me too many times to believe otherwise.

 

[devilfish]

That's the problem with most "newly invented" concepts. By the time it reaches the 10th ear, the message has no resamblance to the original message and becomes gospel. There's a little bit more to diving than just juming in with modern well maintained equipment after watching a video course. I'm outa this pointless argument.

 

[boomx5]

When I first read the title of this thread I thought it said, "Pee Heating Your Wetsuit". Although I agree with DrySuitDave, and I will never go back to diving wet again, I have used the warm water down the back technique before on cold diving days.

 

[Norm]

We were getting ready to dive in a river yesterday. The weather was cool and we were wearing wet suits. My dive buddy showed up with an ice chest with three one-gallon jugs of hot tap water inside. We poured some of the hot water into our suits prior to getting into the river. After we got out we dumped some more of it down into our suits. The hot water stayed in the suit for a surprising long time. It's a cheap, simple idea that makes diving on a cold day a little more comfortable and makes jumping into the cold water less of a shock.

I've done this for years in really cold weather and it works great, (especially in the mitts and booties).
Norm