Dry suit exhaust valve question

[Shipwreckscanada]

The question on top should read...

[At what level do you put your dry suit exhaust valve for a dive?
Percentage starts at 0 or most negative.]


I find that I have trouble adjusting the amount of air I put in my dry suit. If I put too much air I need to let some out the exhaust valve,and that wastes valuable air. If I close my exhaust valve too much I get suit squeeze. I need a good balance, but have a hard time finding the right exhaust valve level to be comfortable. That’s why I’m posting this poll. To see what exhaust valve level most dry suit diver’s use.

 

[mala]

fully open is most common.
closing the valve does not give squeeze-not putting air in gives squeeze.

being overweighted wont help.

keep diving it will get better.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

I keep it almost completely closed (two or three turns clockwise from open) for most of the dive, just in case any air wants to get out through the exhaust. Above 40ft, I open it completely. Works for me.

I'm sure I'd be equally comfortable with it completely open, but I am just slightly paranoid that air will escape if I raise my arm and I'll be wasting air (although that will very likely not happen). Seems to me like you should wait a few seconds each time you add air to check the buoyancy before adding in any more air.

 

[Thalassamania]

I set my valve to where it just bubbles and then, mostly, I leave it there.

 

[Teamcasa]

I find that my suit works perfectly when the valve is wide open..

 

[TSandM]

I prefer to keep mine completely open, but the Apeks valves I now have leak when set that way, so I run them a couple of clicks closed.

It can be difficult to titrate the amount of air in a dry suit if you are diving much out of the horizontal. In that case, any air you put in the suit will fairly promptly vent, whether you want it to or not.

I don't understand the comment about keeping the valve closed leading to squeeze, either, unless because you are keeping the valve closed, you aren't putting any gas in the suit for fear you won't be able to vent it.

 

[PfcAJ]

I fiddle with it throughout the dive. If I'm doing a rocket descent on the scooter, I'll close it all the way. During the dive, I'll have it open all the way or closed a little, and on deco sometimes I'll close it down a good ways and fill my suit up with gas to get a little warmer and just push on it to manually vent between deco stops.

As far as wasting air, I wouldn't really worry about it. I've done some pretty agressive dives inflating off an al6. The drysuit really doesn't use a whole lot of gas, esp on shallow square profile dives. On deep/long/multilevel, the gas usage gets to be a bit higher.

 

[graham_s]

Mine has a wrist dump.
I don't like the auto shoulder dumps.
That said I dive mainly in the middle east now so I use a wetsuit.

 

[Searcaigh]

Mine has a wrist dump.
I don't like the auto shoulder dumps.
That said I dive mainly in the middle east now so I use a wetsuit.

Wait until you have been here a few years, I use a 5 mil semi dry in winter and on a few occasions have been thinking about a dry suit.

 

[Peter_C]

At the surface before the dive I keep my valve closed. Going to descend it is wide open. Depending on the person or team I am diving with I may or may not close the valve down a little. Mostly it has to do with having to watch someone that hangs out up higher and to my left, causing me to roll to view them. Which of course causes my suit to vent, so I close the valve down a little. Wide open on ascent, but once back on the surface I close it down and inflate my suit a little.