"We had to take down our compressor due to a leak."

[clownfishsydney]

I didn't think this was very common up until recently. I had 3 tanks come back loaded with oily residue and are now shot. Im seeing your post and have talked to some others and it seems like this is becoming a bit more common. What scares me is that I have 7 tanks, my previous LDS has now went out of business and they did hydro and VIP on all of them last year. 3 out of the 7 were junk this year. The only thing I can think of is the 3 bad ones were nitrox blends so maybe that was part of the issue. Though now I am a bit worried, if this happens in the middle of the dive season, other then doing another VIP how can I ever know if I have oil or something bad in my tank from a fill?

Tanks and valves are not "shot", all they need is to be properly cleaned.

 

[Mahoney86]

Tanks and valves are not "shot", all they need is to be properly cleaned.

When a tank becomes corroded and deeply bitted, in my book it is shot. Im yet to find a dive shot that will tumble, hydro and pass a tank that has pitting. Unless its just the insanely sue happy NJ

 

[clownfishsydney]

When a tank becomes corroded and deeply bitted, in my book it is shot. Im yet to find a dive shot that will tumble, hydro and pass a tank that has pitting. Unless its just the insanely sue happy NJ

Unlikely to corrode and pit when it is oil that is the problem.

 

[Mahoney86]

Unlikely agreed but it happened to 3 out of 7 of my tanks. They were hrydo and VIPed last year, relatively new tanks. A white oily substance was inside them

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

Yikes....sounds like water mixed with oil. Hopefully they can be blasted and saved. I bought a steel tank used several years ago and it had some rust in the bottom upon Vis. One shop would not pass it, and all they could do is tumble it, so I took it to the shop that does most of the hydro testing in the area and they blasted it, cleaned it, and it was good to go.

Good luck,
Jay

 

[WarrenZ]

A good shop would take care of the tank tumbling/cleaning if it was their fault. I would expect that your damage claim might get more scrutiny if your tanks were only filled once at that shop and then usually filled elsewhere.

 

[Wookie]

Unlikely agreed but it happened to 3 out of 7 of my tanks. They were hrydo and VIPed last year, relatively new tanks. A white oily substance was inside them

I can't tell you what to do in New Jersey. In Houston, I found a cylinder refurbisher (Western) who would sandblast the inside of the cylinder, then hydro and vip for 20 bucks. That price includes bank cylinders. Since New Jersey is the industrial craphole of the Northeast, I would expect that such a service is available there. This means going around your LDS and taking your own action. It's worth it to save some cylinders IMO. In Key Largo, I take any cylinder that has had water in it to Quiescence, they tumble and hydro them for me, although it's closer to 50 bucks per with them. I haven't ever lost a steel cylinder to water or rust.

 

[KevinNM]

How often do you end up with a steel cylinder that gets water in it?