VIP Inspectors: Identifiable vs Identified

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My wife repairs regulators in a scuba shop. We can all agree that regulators aren't cheap, and even cost more than cylinders. Many divers own their own regulators, probably more than own their own cylinders.

You would be shocked at the condition most regulators come in for service in. I mean that. Shocked and most.

It is remarkable the nights she comes home and says "I worked on a regulator that was in pretty good shape". She services regulators for the local community college, her dive shop, another dive shop in town, the scientific divers for a number of organizations, and whomever wanders in off the street, locals and vacationers alike. A large percentage must be frozen to disassemble. Most everything goes into the acid bath. Everything goes into the ultrasonic, just as a precaution.

Most divers are ineffective gear rinsers. They don't keep their regulators in pristine condition, or hardly in working condition. There is no reason to assume that the majority of divers would keep their cylinders any better.

Interesting. I need you to be my neighbors so I can learn some more, lol.

I understand that there are 2 different kinds of divers. Vacation and serious. Obviously if we're all spending time on a scuba forum I would think that we are the latter. Hard to compare the 2 as they really are worlds apart. I should know I live with a vacation diver. She could care less, and your right, I would not want her to vip my tanks, but that's not me and that's probably not the majority on this board, but I get that we are the minority.
 
On that line of thinking Frank, then the shops that do crappy service should then discredit any that do it properly... everyone is now suspect (and apparently assumed incompetent).

Divers may have bad eggs in the masses in regard to care, but they aren't necessarily carrying specific credentials that says they are trained to a recognized standard in that subject (it is a reach to think the equipment care as part of OW is considered an adequate coverage).

Do they accept dive certificationd from other shops to then take additional classes?

Simply put, they are pissing on anyone that is not feeding their economic engine. What next?

You didn't buy that from us? Sorry, you can't dive it on our charter.... good grief.

While I appreciate this dive shop, this is a poor stance...
 
I understand DRIS' position. Kudos to Mike for not coming in and blasting. I understand Marie's position. Kudos to her for stating her position thoughtfully and clearly. As Marie has said, their fill station, their rules. As a long time liability target and cylinder owner/inspector, I would like to add a little perspective.

No visual will save a cylinder from exploding. It rarely works that corrosion would eat through a cylinder that quickly, and I've seen some terribly pitted and condemned cylinders. But people are people, and they will blame the dive shop for a lot of things, so the shop wants to be relatively assured that the cylinder that they are filling is in somewhat decent shape, without products of corrosion in their cylinder. They are putting a good amount of a hazardous material in a small container, they want to be assured that the container can hold it. They also want to be assured that the person receiving the fill doesn't already have something in the cylinder that will hurt them. I have found amazing things in cylinders. When I took over cylinder inspection for a liveaboard dive boat company and did all of the VIPs the first year, I found spaghetti noodles, a dead cockroach, a ton of rust and/or aluminum oxide, slime, goo and other stuff that maybe we shouldn't breathe.

DRIS provides a pathway for cylinder owners to get their inspected cylinders approved for filling at THEIR fill station. Good for them. the pathway provided is not convenient for Marie to use, sad for her. But she has another option, getting them filled at her closer LDS. Yay for her.

At the end of the day (and story), Mike wants his customers to come back as healthy as they left last time. That's not a bad philosophy of liability. That doesn't work in everyone's favor always, and not in Marie's case this time, but as the song says, you can't please everyone all the time, but I think DRIS pleases most folks most of the time, including Marie.

You’re not limited where you get fills if you do the VIP yourself at the shop and then they check.

I’m not going the path of doing it myself with the SDI stickers I had because I need to be sure I can get fills when I dive around the region. There are some pretty podunk towns and I can’t be left high and dry with empty tanks and a trip maybe ruined and being reduced to diving rental AL80s if I’m on singles. I’ll be damned if I haul VIP paperwork around with me. It’s the principle of the thing.

Had contact with Mike last night. We’re fine with each other. I’m not pissed at them. Their compressor, their rules. As I’ve stated, my primary issue is that the policy was changed, yet it wasn’t communicated on the website. If I’d have gone to get fills without being aware of the new policy, that would have been another story.
 
You’re not limited where you get fills if you do the VIP yourself at the shop and then they check.

I’m not going the path of doing it myself with the SDI stickers I had because I need to be sure I can get fills when I dive around the region. There are some pretty podunk towns and I can’t be left high and dry with empty tanks and a trip maybe ruined and being reduced to diving rental AL80s if I’m on singles. I’ll be damned if I haul VIP paperwork around with me. It’s the principle of the thing.
Oh, I completely get where you are coming from. You'll get no argument on your stance from me.
 
The lesson here is that it’s not the best use of of time and money to get certified to inspect your own tanks

I would disagree - although not in the sense that you would save money.

Education is never worthless.

Nothing to stop you making you own (Pre VIP), VIP inspection for your own piece of mind.

If a shop rejects your tanks, then you can either agree or discuss from a position of some knowledge
 
I would disagree - although not in the sense that you would save money.

Education is never worthless.

Nothing to stop you making you own (Pre VIP), VIP inspection for your own piece of mind.

If a shop rejects your tanks, then you can either agree or discuss from a position of some knowledge

Not a bad idea.
 
On that line of thinking Frank, then the shops that do crappy service should then discredit any that do it properly... everyone is now suspect (and apparently assumed incompetent).

Divers may have bad eggs in the masses in regard to care, but they aren't necessarily carrying specific credentials that says they are trained to a recognized standard in that subject (it is a reach to think the equipment care as part of OW is considered an adequate coverage).

Do they accept dive certificationd from other shops to then take additional classes?

Simply put, they are pissing on anyone that is not feeding their economic engine. What next?

You didn't buy that from us? Sorry, you can't dive it on our charter.... good grief.

While I appreciate this dive shop, this is a poor stance...

Agree with everything written.

If a shop really wanted to protect its employees, then they should fill in a blast chamber. Like you said, shouldn't let anyone dive unless their gear serviced by said shop, and really shouldn't accept OW certs from anywhere else because who knows the quality of the training.

To allow another shop to do a vip and fill and then they fill is no different than @Marie13 doing a vip herself. There's no way to "know" if someone did it right, and I'd put $$$ on it that she would do a more thorough job than the "other" shop because she owns and depends on those tanks.
 
On that line of thinking Frank, then the shops that do crappy service should then discredit any that do it properly... everyone is now suspect (and apparently assumed incompetent).

Divers may have bad eggs in the masses in regard to care, but they aren't necessarily carrying specific credentials that says they are trained to a recognized standard in that subject (it is a reach to think the equipment care as part of OW is considered an adequate coverage).

Do they accept dive certificationd from other shops to then take additional classes?

Simply put, they are pissing on anyone that is not feeding their economic engine. What next?

You didn't buy that from us? Sorry, you can't dive it on our charter.... good grief.

While I appreciate this dive shop, this is a poor stance...
So, you know I ran a dive boat. We did not rent gear. So why am I certified to repair most everything?

Because when someone plans a liveaboard vacation, they get ready, which means getting regs serviced. We carried 24 passengers. I bet I had to service at least 2 stages per trip. "But I just got that serviced" was heard many many times. I'd find balance chambers inserted backwards, lever springs not engaged with the poppet, too many/not enough shims under the main spring, filthy internals, gobs of DC111.

We've all met divers who can't work tables. And on a liveaboard, if your DC craps the bed, you dive tables. If you can't work tables, you can't dive. Does this mean that they were poorly certified? You're an instructor. Do you blindly accept that a diver who comes to you with ABC agency rescue card is ready for DM/DC class, or do you evaluate them? If you don't evaluate them, I'm shocked.

DRIS wants to evaluate the efficacy of someone who wants to do their own maintenance. I just can't fault them for this.
 
DRIS wants to evaluate the efficacy of someone who wants to do their own maintenance. I just can't fault them for this.

Agreed. But do you evaluate the same person that gets on your boat time and time again? I could understand evaluating the 1st VIP, after that there's no reason to.
 
This is apples to oranges....

But I'll continue.

Did you charge them extra to evaluate them, or was it all part of your standard operation?

This is specifically singling out, and a blanket discredit to trained inspectors...
 

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