Why service working regs?

[texdiveguy]

As a general rule for fresh water divers who properly rinse and let their regs dry prior to storing and dive monthly or very often.....a quality reg. can go 'years' without any service. There are many factors that will determine the schd. one follows regarding the rebuilding of regs and valves. It is a great rule to always well test those recently serviced regs and valves prior to a big-trip or extended//deep dive. For those living and diving in the salt water setting---well move to an area of fresh water diving and save yourself some work--lol.

 

[cavediver08]

I am sorry, but thousands of feet in a system is the last place I want to find out my regulator isn't working. =)

 

[pasley]

...n. But if you think about it, what is the worst case scenario for a malfunctioning regulator? ...

DEATH is the worse thing that can happen. (Note I am a Real Estate Broker and do not own, operate or work for a dive shop).

DAN magazine ran an article about 2005 or so about a diver who had a regulator serviced, did one or two dives, then did not dive for a year. Went diving without having the regulator serviced, at 100 feet he started having issues, small bubbles and odd behavior. Bubbles became a cascade and he pushed away help and swam deeper to his death. The killer? A speck of rust in the regulator that shredded the O-ring. The rust partially blocking the orifice causing the diver to be starved for air.

O-rings may become worn or cracked with age (how old was it when the tech installed it?), rust may occur.
Is your LIFE SUPPORT (No not just people with a profit motive say that. It is Life Support Equipment) equipment really where you want to skimp on service? Servicing your gear is only $100 - $200 a funeral is thousands.

I have all my gear serviced every year by someone I trust. I also have it done while I watch.

 

[diverrex]

I service my gear when it breaks/gets hard to breathe.
100% of all reg failures ive seen have been regs straight out of service.

100% of regs I've seen fail were ones that the owner never serviced. Seriously. We all have our anecdotal evidence.

 

[Hickdive]

DAN magazine ran an article about 2005 or so about a diver who had a regulator serviced, did one or two dives, then did not dive for a year. Went diving without having the regulator serviced, at 100 feet he started having issues, small bubbles and odd behavior. Bubbles became a cascade and he pushed away help and swam deeper to his death. The killer? A speck of rust in the regulator that shredded the O-ring. The rust partially blocking the orifice causing the diver to be starved for air.

I think the 'killer' in this case was swimming away from potential rescuers and swimming deeper.

The victim could equally well have been diving a recently-serviced reg, or any other piece of kit, that failed and the decision to continue the dive instead of aborting would always be what killed them. Unfortunately, divers can't have their brains serviced.

Having spent a number of years having 'annual' services by professionals regardless of the actual perfomance of the reg and then having to take them back for follow-up work to get them functioning correctly; I now only get regs serviced when their perfomance deteroriates or there is a specific issue that needs addressed. I also now send mine back to the manufacturer for a factory service by people who definitely know what they're doing.

If something hasn't been used in a year or more then I would suggest at least an inspection by someone who knows what they're doing is called for but for regularly dived regs with no issues I wouldn't bother.

 

[Bottomfeeder Brodie]

My coworker never had his reg serviced for years. I had to arm wrestle him to let me take it in for service. Its performance degraded slowly over the years (2) and he never noticed so upon getting it back, he thought he was breathing through a brand new high end. The tech at the LSD said he essentially gutted the reg because it was trashed and wondered how it even worked. I doubt if I want to survey the Spiegel Grove with anything like that. Not dying for pennies. I dive with 3 regs as does my wife and only dive buddy. The yearly service is life insurance. I have to stress another point. Equipment service intervals are part of our training. Stick to your training!

 

[ScubaSarus]

Personaly I would not want to be the one to have to service a non-working regulator and probably the person with a non-working regulator may not be around to do so. Think about it.

 

[spectrum]

into_the_plane


It's an age old question and you can find a monthly dialog here if you search. Bit let me peak to a few of you points.

The failure mode of nearly all regulators is to over deliver air by virtue of the downstream valve concept. This is to say that the regulator works to old the air back and if it fails you get a free flow. This is all fine and good as long as the valve does get open. Other wise it becomes a bad day.

As a piece of pneumatic equipment it is hard to believe that a regulator needs to be rebuilt after delivering air for a year of good use like 100 1 hour dives. In this case however we are not talking about the regulator for pneumatic tool in two important respects.

First of all the valves, especially in your second stage are precisely adjusted in order deliver air smoothly at your first hint of desire. That delicate adjustment is deteriorating right now as we write. It all depends on the interface of a soft valve seat and an orifice and the orifice is imprinting it's self into the seat, changing the performance of the regulator right now. The regulator that was OK last month may free flow when you take out of storage and dive with it next month. As this gets closer and closer to falling off the edge it becomes more likely that something like a deeper dive sends it into free flow.

Second is corrosion. While in the burbs of Chicago your local diving fresh water you can still get contamination from fresh water in addition to ocean trips or a bad cylinder/air. Corrosion concealed in the regulator can cause sudden unpredictable failures and damage that requires costly part replacement.

Until you really understand regulators and your usage staying with the manufacturer's suggestion is a good bet. Find a good shop. Always make the first few dives after a service event conservative and always make a few local dives before taking freshly serviced gear on vacation.

Pete

 

[shadragon]

Why do you change oil in your car regularly? Why change filters, check the tire pressure and fluid levels? Do you wait until you skid off the road before looking for issues or do you do it ahead of time?

Same logic with reg servicing...

 

[String]

100% of regs I've seen fail were ones that the owner never serviced. Seriously. We all have our anecdotal evidence.

Quite a lot may depend what the quality of service technicians are around you. In the last few years ive experienced 12 (documented as club incidents) regulators freeflow underwater and/or on the surface in an uncontrolled way. Every single one of those had been serviced in the last month. I've seen exactly no incidents from regs that had been more than 1 month since service.

Regs really aren't complicated devices - i fail to see the need for annual servicing and every time you take one apart you risk damaging or wearing something a little bit more.

Last few times its needed it i've done my Apeks valves myself. You can buy the service kits from germany.