POV warriors...... A term I learned here on SB from, IIRC, @The Chairman
Old steels denied fills due to store "policy"
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Sorry, I am not quite sure I understand the checks and balances part. Having read it all, to me the thread is a train wreck ... yeah, with some good bits here and there, but a train wreck.
Wasn't the original issue not so much the fact that old tanks weren't filled, but that the quoted policy was not "given" when asked for?
Don't we all agree that a shop gets to choose which tanks they do and do not fill for whatever reason? Do they need a written policy for that reason? Does that reason have to be a constant or can it change maybe pending on who is working that day ... or actually on real reason? (Edit, lost sentence; Surely the reason matters less than knowing what the rule is and it being "known" snd constant until it needs to change)
Does it matter if Force E decided they will not fill any old tanks including steels because of an accident with an Al tank or if it's just their policy for whatever reason?
Again, just as we all agree that we can choose the shops we get our fills from, don't we all agree that the shops get to choose what they do and do not fill?
And don't we all agree that it might be helpful if we knew what a shop will and will not fill, so we can make our fill choices w/o wasting time on finding out the hard way?
So there is some value in this thread in that we learned that Force E will not fill old tanks. Did we learn what the age of a tank in Hydro and wit VIP sticker less than a year old is for Force E?
If we did, I missed it. There might be value to divers with older tanks in getting that part of the policy from Force E. I have no idea why it hasn't been provided. If I really wanted to know I'd call and ask but I have no older tanks and learned of a shop nearby that will fill them if I had them and were on vacation there.
So we did not learn much at all about that policy so much at heart of the original post. But we learned all about who thinks what of @Ana and ForceE. People take sides. Some like @fullytek take the less popular side and choose to take it forcefully, which always will elicit an equally forceful opposing response. Basic internet and live discussion physics... Except the beer and eye contact are missing here, so it's quite harder than person to person.
And since it is an unwritten rule that once a thread goes south beyond a certain point it is the duty of those focussing on questioning others to dig in on that ... that's where the thread goes... to the trainewreck yard...
And did this post contribute to anything?
Of course not.
I am quite sure Force E is a great place in their own way and with their own rules.
At heart I quite like divers like @Ana & hubby (whom I don't know and likely never meet) who keep using perfectly well functional and safe stuff at whatever age it is and don't subscribe to the wasteful (but not inherently always wrong) dogma of "above a certain age it must be replaced". I might have been quite unhappy to had my regular fill shop all of a sudden chosen to not filly in Hydto and with recent VIP sticker tanks.
@fullytek may be a great guy... and he certainly as a point of view valid for his shop. He may even have a point in wanting to defend Force E. The thread sort of went into attack mode there for a long while...
Did the OP attack? I saw that post as a good and fair post reporting what happened... and that's good to know, especially if you dive old tanks...
But man, that fallacy of attacking the player instead of playing the ball... it just never helps and always spirals into a pissing contest of attacks and defenses.
I really like those words you wrote a few posts upthread @RayfromTX
Wasn't the original issue not so much the fact that old tanks weren't filled, but that the quoted policy was not "given" when asked for?
Don't we all agree that a shop gets to choose which tanks they do and do not fill for whatever reason? Do they need a written policy for that reason? Does that reason have to be a constant or can it change maybe pending on who is working that day ... or actually on real reason? (Edit, lost sentence; Surely the reason matters less than knowing what the rule is and it being "known" snd constant until it needs to change)
Does it matter if Force E decided they will not fill any old tanks including steels because of an accident with an Al tank or if it's just their policy for whatever reason?
Again, just as we all agree that we can choose the shops we get our fills from, don't we all agree that the shops get to choose what they do and do not fill?
And don't we all agree that it might be helpful if we knew what a shop will and will not fill, so we can make our fill choices w/o wasting time on finding out the hard way?
So there is some value in this thread in that we learned that Force E will not fill old tanks. Did we learn what the age of a tank in Hydro and wit VIP sticker less than a year old is for Force E?
If we did, I missed it. There might be value to divers with older tanks in getting that part of the policy from Force E. I have no idea why it hasn't been provided. If I really wanted to know I'd call and ask but I have no older tanks and learned of a shop nearby that will fill them if I had them and were on vacation there.
So we did not learn much at all about that policy so much at heart of the original post. But we learned all about who thinks what of @Ana and ForceE. People take sides. Some like @fullytek take the less popular side and choose to take it forcefully, which always will elicit an equally forceful opposing response. Basic internet and live discussion physics... Except the beer and eye contact are missing here, so it's quite harder than person to person.
And since it is an unwritten rule that once a thread goes south beyond a certain point it is the duty of those focussing on questioning others to dig in on that ... that's where the thread goes... to the trainewreck yard...
And did this post contribute to anything?
Of course not.
I am quite sure Force E is a great place in their own way and with their own rules.
At heart I quite like divers like @Ana & hubby (whom I don't know and likely never meet) who keep using perfectly well functional and safe stuff at whatever age it is and don't subscribe to the wasteful (but not inherently always wrong) dogma of "above a certain age it must be replaced". I might have been quite unhappy to had my regular fill shop all of a sudden chosen to not filly in Hydto and with recent VIP sticker tanks.
@fullytek may be a great guy... and he certainly as a point of view valid for his shop. He may even have a point in wanting to defend Force E. The thread sort of went into attack mode there for a long while...
Did the OP attack? I saw that post as a good and fair post reporting what happened... and that's good to know, especially if you dive old tanks...
But man, that fallacy of attacking the player instead of playing the ball... it just never helps and always spirals into a pissing contest of attacks and defenses.
I really like those words you wrote a few posts upthread @RayfromTX
The thread started to go off the rails with the scare quotes in the title.
Claiming that any steel tank over 20 years old is scrap needed to be challenged, IMO. A lot of people challenged that without attacking the person. If no one challenges it, eventually it could become the default view and the de facto standard. Especially if that unchallenged view becomes google’s programmatical search favorite. The challenges to that view are the checks and balances I was referring to.
Edited because I can’t spell tank.
Here is a brief historical essay on "shop policy" and all 3 of the local shops mentioned in the opening pages of this post. The moral of the story is at the end in case you want to skip the details.
I come to South Florida for an extended period each winter--yes, I am a snow bird. The first time I did it was about 8 years ago, and I got most of my fills from Fill Express. Their policy in regard to my LP steel tanks (2640 rate pressure) was to fill so they would cool to about 3,000 PSI. One day on a long deco stop, my buddy wrote on his wrist slate that he had just bought Fill Express. As the new owner, he maintained that policy.
I come to South Florida for an extended period each winter--yes, I am a snow bird. The first time I did it was about 8 years ago, and I got most of my fills from Fill Express. Their policy in regard to my LP steel tanks (2640 rate pressure) was to fill so they would cool to about 3,000 PSI. One day on a long deco stop, my buddy wrote on his wrist slate that he had just bought Fill Express. As the new owner, he maintained that policy.
On the other hand, their website had a page of resource documents, one of which stressed the importance of never filling a tank past its rated pressure, even to allow it to cool to that pressure.
When Fill Express closed, I switched to Pompano Dive Center. When my LP tanks were filled to 2400, the guy who filled it said that he had filled them to the marking on the tank. I explained about the plus sign, which was new to him. The manager told me that it was shop policy not to fill LP tanks past their rated pressure, which he agreed would be 2640 with the plus sign. I asked if I could at least get them filled TO the rated pressure, and he said, "Now you're splitting hairs." They routinely filled their AL 80s to 3300, so when I dived with friends who rented AL 80s, they would usually have more gas in their tanks than I had in my LP 85s.
On the other hand, one of their employees had no problem filling my LP tanks to 3,500.
Dissatisfied, I switched to Force E, which promised me fills cooling to 3,000 PSI. They said that was shop policy. My lowest fill with them came a couple weeks ago, when it cooled to about 2,900 PSI. The man who did it said they had just had a shop meeting that explained the dangers of overfilling. The problem was the burst disk--in a hot car the tank could heat up, blow the disk, damage the car, and bring on a lawsuit.
On the other hand, when I got the tanks filled again the next day, the employee who did it took the tanks to 3,500.
Force E does not do Trimix, so I go to Pompano for that. One day a few years ago, when I picked up my doubles (108), the man who filled them told me one of my burst discs was leaking slightly, so he had fixed it. I did not realize he meant he had replaced it, using one appropriate for an LP tank (which was not true of the one he replaced). That caused quite a sensation when Cave Adventurers later tried to fill them to 3700. I am sure anyone who was there could tell you all about it today.
On the other hand, the last time I had the doubles filled with trimix there, the employee followed the same policy he had used at Fill Express--cool to 3,000.
Moral: Shop policies vary by the individual employee.
TripleA
Registered
Should I tell the boss I am gonna scrap these in 17 years? Probably should replace the hundreds of feet of tubing as well. They go from 1500 psi to 4000psi all day long.
Bob DBF
Contributor
Boy, that's the truth, and that dosen't even include imperfect knowledge.
Had to stop a fill on an old steel 72 on its way past 2800# because the tank monkey thought it was HP 100, never looked at the service pressure. I had a chat with the manager when he came in, and over time the tank monkey improved.
Bob
Eric Sedletzky
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And I was the staff member who helped Ana. I helped her ask the manager about policy at Force E, and I helped her find Tony and the staff at PDC.
I have no issue with Force E's fill station, Force E's rules. None whatsoever. I have an issue with someone coming on the interwebs and telling me a 40 year old steel tank is junk or rotten, and I should hold it between my knees while filling.
To be perfectly clear, if I'm filling it, it's because I gave it a quick once over, looked at the hydro and VIP sticker, and have no issue with it between my knees, because the result is the same if it's between my knees or 10 feet away. If it lets go, I'm not safe at any distance that I could possibly be in charge of fills.
I have written fill station procedures and perform training for my fill station operators, just like PSI taught me and DOT and CGA require. In those procedures are a set of standards for all fill station operators to follow. Because it's the law. So the comment earlier that "not everyone has procedures" is BS, at least in the USA. I understand Fullytec isn't in the USA. So no, it isn't that the rules have to be posted online, but somewhere Force E has a set of standards for filling cylinders that they should be able to pass along to Ana without too much hassle.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. She has a new shop with a friend of mine. She is happy, and she gets her fills. Force E has met the intent of their procedure, and good on them. They repeated the same limit to me offline, BTW, they don't fill steels made before 1980. And the only reason it got personal was because one member kept insisting that he was right because his gut told him so. Which is fine also, but science trumps gut every time. Gut is why we have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.
I have no issue with Force E's fill station, Force E's rules. None whatsoever. I have an issue with someone coming on the interwebs and telling me a 40 year old steel tank is junk or rotten, and I should hold it between my knees while filling.
To be perfectly clear, if I'm filling it, it's because I gave it a quick once over, looked at the hydro and VIP sticker, and have no issue with it between my knees, because the result is the same if it's between my knees or 10 feet away. If it lets go, I'm not safe at any distance that I could possibly be in charge of fills.
I have written fill station procedures and perform training for my fill station operators, just like PSI taught me and DOT and CGA require. In those procedures are a set of standards for all fill station operators to follow. Because it's the law. So the comment earlier that "not everyone has procedures" is BS, at least in the USA. I understand Fullytec isn't in the USA. So no, it isn't that the rules have to be posted online, but somewhere Force E has a set of standards for filling cylinders that they should be able to pass along to Ana without too much hassle.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. She has a new shop with a friend of mine. She is happy, and she gets her fills. Force E has met the intent of their procedure, and good on them. They repeated the same limit to me offline, BTW, they don't fill steels made before 1980. And the only reason it got personal was because one member kept insisting that he was right because his gut told him so. Which is fine also, but science trumps gut every time. Gut is why we have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.
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