Surface units pros and cons and advice please

[happy-diver]

Yeah carrying's always hard and whatever you settle on someone will always have to carry it.

Gardening cart, cart with big wheels, balloon tyres, electric, motorbike, quadbike, helicopter.

amphibious, vehicle

Hercules or Samson

 

[Mystical Dragon]

Don't do it!!!!!!!

BTW, if anything goes wrong and somebody gets hurts, OSHA will most likely get involved with heavy fines, jail times, etc.

osha has no bearing on us and piss on them anyways.

This thread isnt about that I am wanting info from people who have used various surface units and their feedback on them.

 

[Mystical Dragon]

Please don't try this.

OW certification is fine for picking up light trash in benign conditions. Anything beyond that requires progressively more advanced training and equipment.

White water and rebar may be beyond anyone's training. You have high pressures, low visibility, entanglement and puncture hazards, a dynamic worksite, terrible footing on the approaches, a need to wield sharp and bulky tools, and difficult material removal. Doing this safely likely means temporarily diverting the water from the work area so you can do it dry.

We already do this. We dont only work in water features, and water features arent full whitewater. The most recent time I was pulling myself down the rebar to work on it.

 

[Mystical Dragon]

While I appreciate some concerns raised lets please keep this on topic vs unnecessary rabbit trails. The topic is getting first hand feedback from those who have used a surface unit especially battery powered ones. Their pros and cons. Ones that work well and ones that dont and why.

 

[high_order1]

Yeah carrying's always hard and whatever you settle on someone will always have to carry it.

Gardening cart, cart with big wheels, balloon tyres, electric, motorbike, quadbike, helicopter.

amphibious, vehicle

Hercules or Samson

Reminds me. I know some cats that actually used donkeys to hire their rescue gear to the remote location.

While I appreciate some concerns raised lets please keep this on topic vs unnecessary rabbit trails

K
I'm out

 

[Mystical Dragon]

I have researched this a ton.

There are three types. Supplied, SNUBA, and hookah.
Supplied is the professional way. Like fresh air for SCBA.
SNUBA is a trademark, but i take it to mean a tank(s) that float above you.
hookah is a compressor that is above the water line.

Advantage is that you have air that is only limited by your source.
Since you are already on one hose, it is easy to add a wire or two to send communications and potentially video topside to your safety people.

Disadvantage is that you can only go as far as your tether. Also, if you are using a raft style, and it is unmonitored, it gets flipped by wake or wave, or the raft is poked...

Wash is tangling hazard. If the environment is going to snag, it can get the hoses on your scuba setup just like the tether/umbilical.


I know that you know what you are doing is exceptionally hazardous as-is. And you know that submerging to clear garbage is some of the most dangerous marine/shore operations you can do, so I won't beat you up over that, except to say to do it the way they would want here you'd need multiple, multiple certs. (Open water won't even begin cut it, to pardon the pun). That would be borderline commercial hardhat work. (Read about people dying just cleaning silt out of drainage pipes with a vacuum, for instance)

The real question would be, what does your organizations' insurance cover? Would it be a workmans' comp issue when you get injured doing this?

Far as rendering an opinion on the units you mentioned, none are designed for strenuous exertion, which is a real issue with underwater operations. Neither are for commercial operation, but borderline pool noodling and having fun in clear water. You outbreathing their capacity trying to yank stuck stuff out of the muck is a clear possibility.

You would still need some sort of rescue (what sport divers call a bailout) bottle setup in case you are entangled and lose your tether. Or have to cut your tether away.

Is there a local salvage company that can sherpa you guys a little?

Thanks for helping your local environment. Don't get deaded doing it though! The surface may only be three inches away, but if you can't get there before you run out of air...

Thank you for the constructive feedback and information. We always put safety above everything. Yes we understand the risks and we work to minimize it. We would always have a backup air source when under the water in addition to our other safeties monitoring us.

Most of what we would be using such a system for would be searching areas, digging sand/gravel out to attach chokers to logs, or using hand saws to cut things as needed. We understand by controlling our breathing, exertion and resting that it will decrease our air demands. Thats fine even if it goes slower to get the task done.

I saw reviews on some units that "supported dual divers" that barely supplied enough air for one diver let alone two. One review was by 2 experienced certified divers with alot of dives under tehri belts. one started panicking because she felt her air was being stolen because the device couldn't keep up with the demand of both of them. We are trying to avoid finding this to be the case after the fact. We might even travel to demo units if thats what it takes to ensure enough air is supplied.

 

[high_order1]

I saw reviews on some units that "supported dual divers" that barely supplied enough air for one diver let alone two.

This is for two reasons.

One is, most people cannot math adequately, and so puffery occurs in advertising. (In my day, the big one was how many watts the car stereo amp the nice gentleman in the white van was selling).

The second reason is called SAC. I am not qualified in any way to discuss this with you, but, here is what I think I've learned.

Most people do not have the same air consumption needs. Because the items you inquire on are designed for the lowest air needs (clear water, little effort, no panic), they can get away with a couple of younger healthy people on their systems.

The deeper you go, the beefier the compressor you need. That doesn't even mean 30 feet, apparently just a foot or two from the surface makes a bigger difference than say 60 to 63 feet.
So, a toy hookah again, might work fine for one person at three feet idly watching leaves in a drain, but might be at the hairy edge for an older guy at two feet scrubbing the heck out of his hull.

The BLU 3 even uses a device in the mouth to determine flow rate, and slows when not actively demanded. (I think that's the one, I am getting my patents confused).

On the other hand, a brownies semi-commercial unit designed for gold diggers with a 5hp gas motor probably would let a couple of divers in ok shape but actively collecting debris breathe without too much effort a few feet from the surface. I guess.

One person and one air powered saw? I would have to try it in a pool first.

 

[lowwall]

We already do this. We dont only work in water features, and water features arent full whitewater. The most recent time I was pulling myself down the rebar to work on it.

You said whitewater. I simply quoted you.

But more importantly, your main question is really a side issue. What you do not appear to understand is the dangers inherent in breathing compressed gas in a dynamic environment. To give you an idea, there have been multiple fatalities of divers collecting golf balls from static water features. What you are proposing is far more dangerous.

It's not just drowning. Another danger is that you can literally rupture your lungs ascending as little as three feet if you don't maintain an open airway, a hazard that is much more dangerous working shallow than deep because of the pressure gradient. How closely can you control your depth while working in fast flowing water?

If you don't want to listen to us or think that our advice doesn't apply to your environment, then please get in touch with a local commercial diver and get a first-hand opinion.

All that said, I'm going to try to answer your question. Everyone who does serious work on surface supplied air uses a compressor running off a gas engine or shore power. If you only needed a couple of hours of run time, you could run an electric compressor off one of the big lithium ion battery packs that supply 110v. But you wouldn't be saving any weight or bulk compared to bringing in a couple of scuba tanks.

 

[happy-diver]

While i appreciate your concern and I might be a new diver

osha has no bearing on us and piss on them anyways.

This thread isnt about that I am wanting info from people who have used various surface units and their feedback on them.

We already do this.

You don't already do anything lest have respect for those sharing why your attitude may seem disconcerting
How good is that info high_order1 is providing, it's cool easy to find in between posts you find disagreeable

Yeah by the time you build yourself a unit to keep up with divers and the tools you really will need a chuppa



It's not just diving dude, it's surviving

 

[8mb]

You don't already do anything lest have respect for those sharing why your attitude may seem disconcerting
How good is that info high_order1 is providing, it's cool easy to find in between posts you find disagreeable

Yeah by the time you build yourself a unit to keep up with divers and the tools you really will need a chuppa



It's not just diving dude, it's surviving

happy-diver : as I’m sure you’ve figured out - because you’re a clever pelican like that, this wasn’t meant for you but I just wanted to state that anyway as I clearly am not a forum wizard …or I’d know how to tag your name and/or retag and respond to op instead. I’ll work on my nerd skills, they can always use refining.

Ok I saw your other posts after I saw your hello post and responded to it - so that’s how I ended up on this one. I don’t have any feedback for you about surface units but I did want to note that you’re on scubaboard and as the name implies - people are going to defend that part of it and not the, your job part of it - that scuba is a possible solution for.

This might just be the therapist in me, but you’re surrounded by people who, some of which I’m sure have lost others due to safety issues and in general, I noticed the scuba community is pretty safety oriented. It doesn’t help it to have a bad reputation by promoting high risk activity because that leads to unnecessary death which it traumatic for everyone involved, causes unnecessary ptsd, and scares others off from joining the community.

So, while you may be confident in your skills and that may be true that you can handle whatever the underwater world throws at you - I don’t think it’s realistic to find too many people on here that will likely be so gung ho about risks that could be avoided easily.

I would also imagine not many people on here are getting paid more to risk their lives more while scuba diving, and the ones that do scuba for work should absolutely demand safe working conditions, if not for themselves then for others, so that the standard isn’t poor for the ones who don’t want to die, but want to do that kind of work.

My impression so far is that scuba overall is very much a “think of everyone and the impact it’ll have” kind of activity vs “prove yourself ahead of everyone”.

Just an observation, if it’s helpful.