Nitrox is it worth it????

That's the $175 question I have for you fellow board members. I have the oportunity to take a Nitrox class and wonder. I have heard that if you want to dive Nitrox you have to have your REG. serviced and special rings installed prior to any dive with nitrox if you have dove with normal 21%. Another is buddy concern? you have Nitrox he hasn't and if he runs low on air by helping him with your Nitrox he could have a PO2 problem.

yeah I know it decreases SI and extends bottom time at medium depths but is it worth the hassle?


Thanks in advance

It was to me.
And it is still.
No, you won't hurt a buddy should you need to share Nitrox with him - so long as you're within safe limits for the mix you're using, he will be too.
Rick

Like Rick told you, if you're using it within safe limits, then sharing it with your buddy will be safe for him as well. Course you wouldn't want to hand off your pony filled with 40% to a buddy at say 120ft. But as long as he breathes what you are breathing, he's fine.

As far as the gear goes, it's the general opinion of most people that it's perfectly safe to use nitrox mixtures of 40% & less with any modern regulator. Even if that regulator has been used with air. I sometimes use both nitrox and air on the same day with the same regulator. Some manufactors have backed away from this over the last few years and now say otherwise. Speculation is that they are taking this stand due to liability issues. Most of those same companies also sell "nitrox" branded regulators. Makes you wander. But as always you should follow all your manufactor's recommendations.

And yes, I feel that it is definately worth it, so long as you thoroughly understand it's limitations and abide by them. Goes back to "plan your dive, dive your plan". It's one of the best courses I've taken and I got way more from it than I did from the AOW.

I think the course is worth it as well as the next course that certs you to 100% O2. My biggest problem with nitrox is the weather -- believe it or not. I'll be planning a trip to a wreck at say 60' or something and get the rich mix and the weather turns to crap at the last minute, and I can't make the dive. What inevitably happens to me is that I end up draining the tanks down and filling them to meet another dive (generally deeper) a week or two later. It gets to be expensive sometimes when things like bad weather, lost buoys, or whatever pops up. My advice is try not to fill your tanks until the very last minute when you know for a fact that you're going to dive to your desired depth.

Take the class. It's one of the very few I would recommend.

Mike

Originally posted by Lost Yooper
.... My biggest problem with nitrox is the weather -- believe it or not. I'll be planning a trip to a wreck at say 60' or something and get the rich mix and the weather turns to crap at the last minute, and I can't make the dive. ....

Click to expand...

I don't have the training, but was thinking about it. So with the little knowledge I have, your comment about the weather is a complete mystery to me. Please explain.

DivingGal

The problem with nitrox is that the richer it is (ie the greater the O2 %) the less deep you can go, called the max operating depth, MOD.

If you plan for a long dive at say 25m on a wreck, and you take a nice high % mix (say 36% O2, with a 28m MOD) you then can't change the dive plan very easily to do a deeper dive if the weather is all wrong.

Classic example like this would be the coast of scotland, where one side of an island might be blown off, but the other side absolutely fine. It the dive site on the other side is deeper than your planned 25m (MOD 28m) then you can't do it. you have to either borrow a tank and fill it with air , or a lower % O2 mix, or sit out the dive.

Jon T

One of the things you might want to consider before taking your Nitrox course is the buddies you dive with and the kind of dives you're into. In case you don't have any nitrox certified buddies it's very annoying to use it when others are diving air - since you have longer NDL and shorter SI with EANx, you will have a different dive profile from them.
If your regular buddy/s are Nitrox certified you'll have all the interest of taking the course

Sue

Fishkiller,
I've been diving Nitrox for the last three years and the answer to your question is yes, it's worth it. As for equiptment, my regs get the same mainteance every year nothing extra. Haven't had any problems with o rings. No extra expense since switching to Nitrox other that the additional cost of the mix, and the two steel tanks I bought just for the Nitrox. My dive buddies? Most of them have taken the course and are diving on Nitrox. It's worth it for me.:tree:Bob

Sorry, what TurnerJD said. You can't dive deep with a high O2 mix (rich), so if you're all set to dive shallow, then your kinda stuck to shallow dives unless you drain the tanks and remix them with less O2.
The opposite happens a lot to me as well. I'll be set up for something deeper and something will pop up and will have to do something shallow. Of course you can dive, but you're not getting the benefit of high O2. It's not complicated as you'll soon find out. All nitrox and even trimix is about is adding a few more unbreakable rules to diving. Just follow the rules.

Mike

A couple of additional comments on Nitrox. We discussed the need for modifing our equipment in the class I was taking and basicly what came out of it was that the increased oxygen content decreased the life of the O rings in the regulators unless oxygen rated ones were used. (The O ring hardens quicker that normal.) The important thing here is "life" of the O ring. The "life" of a O ring is several years in normal service so if your regs are serviced regularly, it really does not matter if the life of the O ring is shortened a little. It's going to be replaced long before the end of it's normal life time anyway. Tanks on the other hand are another matter. Due to the filling procedures of some operators, many require that any tank they fill be O2 cleaned and rated. If you don't have a couple of tanks to dedicate to Nitrox service, then you will have to rent or buy more. Using them in air service after having them O2 cleaned will most likely void the O2 rating and therefore make them un-useable for Nitrox until the O2 rating is restored. Is it worth it? For me, diving it yes, keeping a extra set of tanks, not at this time.