To fill or not to fill?? That is the question

[murphdivers286]

My wife and I did a dive in Altamonte Springs on a Wed. The dive was great, but I have a weird taste that I thought was from the water. We used the rental tanks. At the end of the dive, I felt really nauseous.

We also had two of our tanks filled at the same shop we rented the tanks.

That Friday, we dove Phil Fosters. My wife had a really bad headache after the dive and I felt dizzy (more then normal LOL). She stated her air tasted weird. I checked her air, and it had the same taste as when we were in AS.

We took our tanks to our LDS. They also stated the tanks had a patroleum smell to them. They also informed us it would be about $100.00 to clean both tanks and valves.

Now the questions.

1-How do you know the air you are getting is good air. I'm not talking about your LDS, I'm talking about on a trip where you have no other choice then use an out of town shop.

2-Should the shop pay for our cleaning????

3-Is there any long term effect on us???

Any help would be greatly appreciated.. :06:

 

[artdive]

as far my experience,.

you can check if they have a certificate that suport there store, ( clean air, with an analisis).

If they dont and you dont realy trust the store, you may rent tanks, and keep your own clean.

no long term efect. If in doubt visit your doc.

I gess if you can make them pay sounds good, I mean if they acept there mistake they should pay , they could be risking your healthy. so......

 

[MikeFerrara]

A couple of things come to mind.

Any reputable shop does what they can to insure good air. They should be having their air tested on a regular basis.

the problem is that the analysis is only for certain contaminants and there are lots of things that have smell and taste yet are hard to test for.

If you think they gave you bad air you should, IMO, give them the chance to get a sample of the air from your tank and get it tested. I wold imagine that it might even be hard to find the sourse of the contamination in many cases if it isn't the compressor.

When a tank just gets smelling bad all that's usually required is to rinse it with a little vinager and water so I wouldn't pay any one a hundred bucks for that nor would I go back in that shop. That's assuming of course that it's not full of oil residue. In that case it would nee a good cleaning with a commercial cleaner, simple green or blue gold and a good rinsing.

 

[baitedstorm]

I'm very curious now about the cleaning of the tanks.... Why would it be $50 per tank ? I'm pretty pissed about the entire ordeal, we only have 2 tanks and now I have to rent other ones in order to dive. (we've told our LDS to stand by and let me sort this out before letting them do anything) I want to call the LDS myself and tell them about what happend, but I'm afraid my anger will get in the way of my professionalism. I figured I'd just let Murphdivers to it instead. $100 Freakin' dollars to run simply green in our tanks, pffffffft!!!!! @!&%$%

$100 :O

 

[RBachman]

I'm very curious now about the cleaning of the tanks.... Why would it be $50 per tank ? ................

They pretty much have to disassemble and clean the valves, replace all the "O" rings and clean the bottles. Then they have to reassemble everything and fill the tanks. I think my LDS charges between 35 and 50 to oxy clean a tank....pretty much the same effort that needs to be done to your's. The shop that sold the bad air should be responsible for th cleaning.

 

[sharkbaitDAN]

They pretty much have to disassemble and clean the valves, replace all the "O" rings and clean the bottles. Then they have to reassemble everything and fill the tanks. I think my LDS charges between 35 and 50 to oxy clean a tank....pretty much the same effort that needs to be done to your's. The shop that sold the bad air should be responsible for th cleaning.

Its not $50 worth of labor and parts. To do a regular cleaning requires a once over of the tank and valve with a cleaning solution and then a rinse. It takes about 30 minute to dissassemble and reassemble the valve if you are new at it. An experienced tech could do the whole operation in 5 minutes, plus a trip to the sonic cleaner. The tank has to be completely dry before replacing the valve. It will also take another five minutes to test the valve once its put together. The valve parts will be 5-10 bucks depending on whether it is for nitrox use or not.

O2 cleaning is a whole other story, and takes about three to four times as long to do it properly.

 

[RBachman]

Its not $50 worth of labor and parts. To do a regular cleaning requires a once over of the tank and valve with a cleaning solution and then a rinse. It takes about 30 minute to dissassemble and reassemble the valve if you are new at it. An experienced tech could do the whole operation in 5 minutes, plus a trip to the sonic cleaner. The tank has to be completely dry before replacing the valve. It will also take another five minutes to test the valve once its put together. The valve parts will be 5-10 bucks depending on whether it is for nitrox use or not.

O2 cleaning is a whole other story, and takes about three to four times as long to do it properly.

If I had ANY question as to one of my tanks being contaminated with oils from a compressor, (or anything that would cause me to become sick) I'd definitely want a detailed and in-depth cleaning to remove any and all residue to include replacing all seals that may have become contaminated. At a minimum I'd expect the shop to conduct oil removal cleaning just as they would for an oxy clean and possibly to go beyond that effort considering the symptoms (headache, dizzyness, weird taste, etc.).

 

[Scubamedicjoe]

I would ask the dive shop to show there certificate for clean air could just be bad O ring they not aware of it yet.

 

[alemaozinho]

My wife and I did a dive in Altamonte Springs on a Wed. The dive was great, but I have a weird taste that I thought was from the water. We used the rental tanks. At the end of the dive, I felt really nauseous.

We also had two of our tanks filled at the same shop we rented the tanks.

That Friday, we dove Phil Fosters. My wife had a really bad headache after the dive and I felt dizzy (more then normal LOL). She stated her air tasted weird. I checked her air, and it had the same taste as when we were in AS.

We took our tanks to our LDS. They also stated the tanks had a patroleum smell to them. They also informed us it would be about $100.00 to clean both tanks and valves.

Now the questions.

1-How do you know the air you are getting is good air. I'm not talking about your LDS, I'm talking about on a trip where you have no other choice then use an out of town shop.

2-Should the shop pay for our cleaning????

3-Is there any long term effect on us???

Any help would be greatly appreciated.. :06:

drain tank,remove valve ,look inside for particles or other debris,grease ect,clean tank with simple green solution mixed with lukewarm water for a couple of times and rinse and dry,put valve (cleaned of course) with new o ring back on tank and secure,get clean air and continue diving,peace

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Having a bio filter will help you. They're expensive but I use them when diving away from home.