Contaminated air incident/Are you sure your facility has clean air?

[Quarrior]

Wow, this is bad..........better check next time. I had two airfills daone at this shop in Monterey over the weekend, and my tanks was oily afterwards??? Guess I should dump that air.

and get them cleaned????

 

[Humuhumunukunukuapua'a]

Wow, this is really disturbing. I figured most airfills in the States and Canada at least would be clean.

What is the certification one should look for? Is there a standard certifying agency?

Thanks for any info. And I'm really sorry to hear about this pattern

Gregg

 

[DennisW]

I'll bet that PADI will not remove their affiliation as long as they are paid the fees by the shop. Just my opinion, here. Maybe they would if they were the subject of some serious litigation. It may take something like that to correct this problem. I am sorry to hear about your friends problems. This is scary and could happen to anyone that doesn't check out the air source for the shop they get their tanks filled.

 

[opiniongirl]

Wow, this is really disturbing. I figured most airfills in the States and Canada at least would be clean.

What is the certification one should look for? Is there a standard certifying agency?

Thanks for any info. And I'm really sorry to hear about this pattern

Gregg

So did we....but nope...although the US tends to be a bit more proactive due to litigation down there...but (way too much) research on this has shown that there have been incidents in recent years in the states too.

Facilities must submit a sample quarterly (by PADI standards, anyway) to a third party capable of analysis. Most use Trace Analytics, as they have an affiliation (and discount given) with PADI. Trace will then send a certificate to the facility designating them as a "Clean Air Source" or "Pure Air Source". You can also ask to see the compressor's maintenance logs - the filters for removing contaminants should be replaced at least every quarter, by PADI standards.

Facilities should display their certificate where the public can see it - should have an expiry date, the store name should match, and the compressor make and model should match.

 

[cudachaser]

Hello OPiniongirl

Where is this particular dive shop located? Please Private e-mail if you don't want to broadcast....but something like that should be brought out into the open

 

[nurse H2O]

Don't laugh at me but did you try reporting them to the public health dept? or maybe the FDA? I know it sounds silly, but they may be able to head you in the right direction.I know it isn't a drug or food, but it is still consumed internally and hey, you never know. It sounds like it really hit you hard. You might do well to talk to a professional who can help you think streight right now. There is no reason for you to go through this alone. If your taking sleeping medication and such,you most likely need help to carry you through.If you are religious, prayer is a great mind settler and God does answer prayers. This is not your fault.

 

[Simply Scuba]

Things are quite different in Florida, reports are required to go quarterly to the department of health and monitored by the state. I believe this is true other places. Honestly its not likely that any parking lot could accidently ever give a detectable carbon monoxide level without foul play. Most incidents have always been traced back to where rental tanks had been refilled by gas powered compressors used privatly or on boats. From experience,the last thing I would ever recommend to anybody is to ever go to a fire dept to get air, those compressors are around running trucks and such, but the problem is actually with the standards thier are fills and compressors are based on that air bieng used at 1 atmosphere, you can't get oxygen toxicity on 50% at 1 atmosphere can you? the acceptable levels of trace gases and impurities are much different for scuba where you may be consuming them at increased levels by diving 4-5 and more atmospheres.

 

[MCasey]

Things are quite different in Florida, reports are required to go quarterly to the department of health and monitored by the state. I believe this is true other places. Honestly its not likely that any parking lot could accidently ever give a detectable carbon monoxide level without foul play. Most incidents have always been traced back to where rental tanks had been refilled by gas powered compressors used privatly or on boats. From experience,the last thing I would ever recommend to anybody is to ever go to a fire dept to get air, those compressors are around running trucks and such, but the problem is actually with the standards thier are fills and compressors are based on that air bieng used at 1 atmosphere, you can't get oxygen toxicity on 50% at 1 atmosphere can you? the acceptable levels of trace gases and impurities are much different for scuba where you may be consuming them at increased levels by diving 4-5 and more atmospheres.

Though Florida has a law about testing your air they are poor at the administration of the law so it is not really a safer state for breathing air. Parking lots can and do create a great hazard in the production of breathing air. There have been many instances where that scenario has caused carbon monoxide failures in an air analysis and serious problems in fewer cases and even death. Good source air is a critical factor in producing safe breathing air. As for most problems comming from gas operated compressors that is not true. In my experience ( many years as technical expert for Lawrence Factor inc in air purity issues) most problems are from electric compressors. The majority of carbon monoxide contamination in divers breathing air is from electric run compressors and the causes vary from poor system maintenance and bad source air to the burning of carbon build up inside the compressor. Most fire departments are very good at the production of quality breathing air though most only test to CGA grade "D". Though with the recent revision of the CGA standards grade "D and grade "E" are now very similar with the only difference being that grade "E" tests THC yet all other parameters are the same. So be "Air Aware" when purchasing air and for you shop owners be dilligent in your system maintenance and make it a point to learn all the ups and downs of safe breathing air production.

 

[Delta_P]

... Though with the recent revision of the CGA standards grade "D and grade "E" are now very similar with the only difference being that grade "E" tests THC yet all other parameters are the same.

Aha! So that's what's going on. I've seen an number of references to Grade D standards lately that looked pretty much identical to Grade E. I thought someone was screwing up.

I suppose that change will make things a little safer with the shops up here who think Grade D standard is appropriate. There's still that minor problem with CSA/WCB/Canada Labour Code regulations...