VIP Inspectors: Identifiable vs Identified

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Holy Crap, @Marie13

Just to clarify as I may have misunderstood. If I were to drive up to your area with my own tanks that are in hydro and have current inspection stickers on them from my LDS; what attitude could I expect from your LDS?
who's on staff at the moment?
who's the manager this year?
are they hurting for cash this month?

This is an unanswerable question month to month and year to year. In general shops hate divers VIPing there own tanks and will make life miserable for many of us that do. Proceed with caution you "do it yourself" big savings can evaporate instantly with a change in ownership, manager, or even just a new fill monkey
 
I find the self censorship the most amusing part of this latest story.

what are they going to do, not fill your tanks? Lol
 
Holy Crap, @Marie13

Just to clarify as I may have misunderstood. If I were to drive up to your area with my own tanks that are in hydro and have current inspection stickers on them from my LDS; what attitude could I expect from your LDS?

LDS stickers aren’t questioned. It’s the generic stickers or ones from individuals. I have tanks I’ve gotten inspected at the shop by my office as turnaround time is much quicker. No issues.
 
Following as well, great lakes is on my list and I VIP all my own tanks.

Then if you expect to get fills, better call ahead to whoever you want to get fills from. They might not fill tanks inspected by individuals.
 
Ah, WTF for the latecomers. DRIS doesn’t fill tanks VIP’d by individuals without you jumping through hoops. Inspector name and cert number must be on the tank. If it’s unreadable for any reason at time of fill, no fill. They have to have a copy of your inspection sheet on file for each tank. Doesn’t matter if you’re bringing in your personal tanks you’ve inspected yourself.

Another option is you can is inspect your tanks at the shop, using their tools and stickers. Cost is $5 and includes a fill ($10 by itself). You have to schedule this beforehand with the repair department. Once you’ve done your tanks, then the shop’s tank inspectors will look at it themselves. This is for the first 12-20 tanks you do yourself.

Doesn’t matter if you’ve taken the VIP class through them or not. Still have to jump through the hoops. I say screw it. I’ll get my single tanks done at the shop by work. $16 and usually done in a day or two, although it doesn’t include a fill. Much closer though.

There’s another place in the region that won’t fill independently VIP’d tanks at all unless the inspection is done in their presence.

The class (with abnfrog and Lowviz) was a good experience and very educational, but I’d not expect to save any money by doing tanks yourself unless you have your own compressor. I doubt I’ll renew when that’s due in three years.
 
Well, that's disappointing and mildly annoying shops get their panties in a wad over an arbitrary standard...
 
And the song remains the same: Their compressor, their rules. You are denying them pure profit, how much does it cost to peek into a pristine tank?

We cope.
So there is no pure profit in the scuba industry. The shop that you are paying for your VIP has rent, utilities, insurance, tank monkey salary...plus the incidentals involved in cylinder inspection (tools, cleaners, o-rings...) I am not saying that there is no profit in VIPs, but there are always costs. I will also say, as a former tank monkey, pristine cylinders are rare...
 
LDS stickers aren’t questioned. It’s the generic stickers or ones from individuals. I have tanks I’ve gotten inspected at the shop by my office as turnaround time is much quicker. No issues.
Interesting. My shop uses generic PSI stickers as the shop sticker.
 
I did suggest to the shop that they need to at least put a notice on the website or a note for people to call ahead if they want fills on independently inspected tanks. I know I’d be peeved if I was diving from out of town, went to get fills, and was told I couldn’t get them. Kinda puts a damper on the trip, plus if you’re diving doubles or odd sized tanks, you’re likely not going to find rentals.
 
And @Marie13 you are pretty well known to both shop a & b, no? It's not like you are a complete stranger walking in with tanks to fill. Heck, didn't you even buy the tanks at shop a?

So not too much off topic of the current flow of the thread but i recently called a different dive shop to get in some pool time to get a little refresher ahead of a trip with my JOW diving daughter. There was a modest charge for the use of the pool but they did want to have an instructor in the water with us.

We are both certified so I did think why do I need an instructor in the water with us but I figured the cost was the same either way so no big deal.

We get there and brought all of our own equipment and tanks - already filled. The instructor then inspected our gear, to him a little too techy unless we are cave divers, which we are not, but still ok to dive with. Long hose only good in caves, blah, blah. No ****, I know that.

When he got to the hydro date and VIP date he had a pause. VIP was out by a year or so but I fill my own tanks and came there with them full. He wasn't sure if we would be able to dive our already full tanks as they were out of VIP. He checked and they did allow us to dive

I mentioned that I brought my drysuit and wanted to try it as I recently put dry gloves on it and haven't used it since. He asked if I was drysuit certified; I am not but do have dozens of dives in this suit. I did not dive the drysuit that day.

So, we did get in the water, with our out of VIP tanks, but no drysuit allowed. At least in the Philippines things are a bit more relaxed. Not sure which one is better, though...

Thinking of taking a drysuit certification course so I can get pool time on it... might be about as valuable as a tank inspection course.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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