Paul Lewis
New
Hi All,
New to the forum and need a little advice.
I recently rented a BCD, reg and tank to do a little maintenance on the bottom of my pool. When picking the gear up the equipment was obviously well used (tatty) but as it was only for brief use in the pool no worries, I did think it a little strange that the dive shop didn't ask for any credentials. Hey ho... Upon arrving at home and assembling the gear it was apparent that the inflator or low presure hose connection to the bcd was faulty as I had to jiggle it to get the bcd to inflate..... again no issue as im only in the pool (max depth 8ft) I proceeded to clean a few hard to get to areas for the next hour and a half with a few coffee breaks... The tank was now down to just over 50bar / 750psi and I was getting close to wrapping up the job in the shallow end in no more than 5ft of water at this point breathing became noticably harder and having done out of air drills i knew the tank was close to out despite the SPG reading 40-50 bar / 6-700psi. Hmmm... at this point i was mainly annoyed at not being able to wrap up the job but then started to mull the safety implications....
I returned the gear to the shop and told them about the BCD issue and to make sure there were no misunderstandings (In Spain and my spainish is limited) i kept the rig assembled so they could see the SPG reading and show that there was no gas depite reading 500psi... The shop basically told me regarding the low pressure hose that i should have tested the gear before leaving the shop... well ok... on the subject of the tank running dry with 400psi on the SPG they were more cagey and said i must not have opened the tank valve fully... well im trained to and always open my valves 100% every time so this was clearly not and issue and from my understanding would not have lead to a dry tank with a 400psi reading on the SPG. They basically washed their hands of me so I left a negative review of the facility online.
Later that the day in response to my feedback they start to accuse me of damaging their equipment, flooding the tank and regulator and that due to the water ingress the SPG malfunctioned and therefore showed positive pressure.... correct me if im wrong but the likleyhood of water ingress through the reg in 5ft of water is low to zero with (3-400psi) in the tank and the likelyhood of that water getting to the SPG is also very low to nil. While at the dive shop I did manage to pull a labored breath through the reg so there was a little gas left in the tank just very hard to pull...
Just want to sanity check my reasoning as I feel they are trying to flip the blame onto me for badly maintained and down right dangerous rental gear. Any feedback is much appreciated.
New to the forum and need a little advice.
I recently rented a BCD, reg and tank to do a little maintenance on the bottom of my pool. When picking the gear up the equipment was obviously well used (tatty) but as it was only for brief use in the pool no worries, I did think it a little strange that the dive shop didn't ask for any credentials. Hey ho... Upon arrving at home and assembling the gear it was apparent that the inflator or low presure hose connection to the bcd was faulty as I had to jiggle it to get the bcd to inflate..... again no issue as im only in the pool (max depth 8ft) I proceeded to clean a few hard to get to areas for the next hour and a half with a few coffee breaks... The tank was now down to just over 50bar / 750psi and I was getting close to wrapping up the job in the shallow end in no more than 5ft of water at this point breathing became noticably harder and having done out of air drills i knew the tank was close to out despite the SPG reading 40-50 bar / 6-700psi. Hmmm... at this point i was mainly annoyed at not being able to wrap up the job but then started to mull the safety implications....
I returned the gear to the shop and told them about the BCD issue and to make sure there were no misunderstandings (In Spain and my spainish is limited) i kept the rig assembled so they could see the SPG reading and show that there was no gas depite reading 500psi... The shop basically told me regarding the low pressure hose that i should have tested the gear before leaving the shop... well ok... on the subject of the tank running dry with 400psi on the SPG they were more cagey and said i must not have opened the tank valve fully... well im trained to and always open my valves 100% every time so this was clearly not and issue and from my understanding would not have lead to a dry tank with a 400psi reading on the SPG. They basically washed their hands of me so I left a negative review of the facility online.
Later that the day in response to my feedback they start to accuse me of damaging their equipment, flooding the tank and regulator and that due to the water ingress the SPG malfunctioned and therefore showed positive pressure.... correct me if im wrong but the likleyhood of water ingress through the reg in 5ft of water is low to zero with (3-400psi) in the tank and the likelyhood of that water getting to the SPG is also very low to nil. While at the dive shop I did manage to pull a labored breath through the reg so there was a little gas left in the tank just very hard to pull...
Just want to sanity check my reasoning as I feel they are trying to flip the blame onto me for badly maintained and down right dangerous rental gear. Any feedback is much appreciated.