Reg servicing

[awap]

Originally Posted by FOUNDATIONER

I get mine serviced every year.
It's cheap insurance and that way parts are free too

I don't see it as either cheap ($50 to $100+) or as "insurance".
What is it you think annual service insures against?

[FOUNDATIONER]

Reg servicing

How often do most people have their regs serviced? It should be done every year based on being conservative for safety, but do most poeple stick to that?

From the looks of this thread, I'm the only one. What does it insure
against? Well, if I knew, I guess I might have a problem. As far as
it being expensive, I spend a WHOLE LOTTA money diving so 50 bucks
really aint much. If you have more problems after servicing, maybe
ya outta find a new tech

[in_cavediver]

I gotta say, this. If were were talking about something other that diving regulators, people who ask why in the double hockeysticks we are doing it.

For instance, do you disassemble/reassemble the brake system on your car every year? Do you rebuild the burner unit in your gas/propane furnace?

I choose those two example specifically because they can fail and cause significant life risk to you. (or at least serious injury). We don't do that, why would we do regs? I consider it profiteering and fear mongering. Its a DS cash cow, since you 'can't do it yourself'. (Many here do just that, myself included)

Regs are simple devices. Take care of it and it lasts. 1st stages can go many many years. Just watch the IP creep. There is no reason to dismantle a perfectly clean functional 1st stage every year. If you expose the 'guts' to the elements, then sure, but do that service/cleaning right away.

2nd stages are trickier. They get exposed to the elements and despite good cleaning with wear. If you clean them well, you can get 1-3 years between rebuilds. Here its more use dependent that time although some have sharp seats that score the sealing surface and require replacement quicker.

Lastly, it is after service that a reg is most likely to fail. Or more generally put, after assembly that its most likely to fail. IE, an o-ring isn't seated correctly, any one of the new seats isn't quite right etc. Even more simply, the tech didn't assemble it correctly or completely. Why else do you always hear 'do a checkout dive after service'.

In the end, its your gear. Do what makes you most comfortable. After all, you are the one diving it.

[CompuDude]

I get my regs serviced every year.

I have a fantastic tech that has my complete faith, and have not had issues with my regs immediately after service.

If you can't say that last sentence and mean it, then YMMV.

[texdiveguy]

I am sorta lucky in that I dive mainly fresh water (not always clean--LOL) as opposed to many of you folks that dive salt water conditions more often than not....this alone will make a big difference in the rebuild schd. you set for your regs.. I persl. only service mine when they need it....I monitor their performance and rinse and hang dry my regs/gear after each dive outing.

[teog]

I do mine every 2 years.

[marchand]

What I meant in the earlier post was the guy has had a reg go seven years before it NEEDED to be serviced. By needed I mean the the performance dropped below an acceptable level or breathing badly. If you take care of your regs you probably don't need to get them serviced yearly, unless you do several dives a day. I heard of one guy who's first stage was green on the outside and it still worked; although, you should get your reg serviced before it turns green. As long as you don't slam the high pressure seat regs will go for a long time.

[JahJahwarrior]

Originally Posted by WaScubaDude

I don't know about every year, but definately don't wait until they are "breathing badly" Asking for trouble and faliure at depth.
I think a total free flow at depth will empty an Alum 80 in less then 30seconds. If you are not near your buddy you can die.

1. You are correct, you should not wait until you can tell they are breathing poorly. You should really keep an eye on the IP pressure and the condition of all of the parts. But, if it is breathing differently at all, seek service immediately! But that should never be your main and most trusted indicator.

2. A total free flow will not empty an 80 in thirty seconds. Some people say it'll take all day, some people like you said thirtys econds. In actuality, a full 80 at 60 FSW or less will take a few minutes to empty. All you need is time to get to your buddy. If you are diving deep or in extraneous circumstances, then you probably also take good enough care of your gear that it will not have a problem at depth like this. Also, if a second stage fails....well let me put it this way. DIR rules say you need to use a reg that you can dissassemble underwater. This is a good rule. I can take apart mys econd stages to fix most problems underwater. Once I heard of a guy who had a small snail crawl into his second stage underwater on a long deco dive in a cave, causing a small freeflow. He just unscrewed the reg and pulled out the problem

Originally Posted by ertechsg

Wow! you really believe that then I 'll bet you don't dive or haven't dived alot

3. Marchand made an exagerated statement, that is correct. I think he was going for some "satire," and the sarcasm was lost on us all. For what it is worth, he dives about every other or every third week, and he often takes apart his second stages to check them for wear either before or after his dives. He has never had any equipment failures that I know of, except for a tank oring blowing once, and has always caught any problems before they became one. He has not had his gear serviced in forever, either For what it's worth, if we want to start name calling, I could point out that the lack of the word "if" after your "Wow!" and your lack of final punctuation probably means you don't speak much (then, you could point out that I must not either, because I misspelled "exaggerated" above) As I said, Marchand probably meant to be satirical and did not mean it quite literally. He makes a good point, though, so hopefully you can forgive him for his exaggeration. He's a great guy who takes good enough care of his gear that I wouldn't be surprised if it made it 7 years, and if it does need servicing, he'll do it himself. So please, forgive him for going a little over the top. And other users that read this, please know that you should not strictly follow Marchand's advice, it was given slightly tongue in cheek.

Originally Posted by FOUNDATIONER

I get mine serviced every year.
It's cheap insurance and that way parts are free too

4. Cheap in what sense? If I purchase cheap regulators, I could almost afford to have them replaced yearly for the cost of servicing. I could definitely afford to replace my setup yearly or every year and a half if I buy used regs that are less than a year out of service or manufacture. Much cheaper than a ride in a chamber if you don't have medical insurance, but definitely not much cheaper than many other things in life, such as new regs.

5. parts are only free if you follow certain rather strict guidelines. If you buy used regs, the rules no longer apply and you are screwed--it's actually an incentive to NOT seek service. Moreover, parts usually are not a large cost in servicing a reg, less than a quarter of the cost is parts in my experience. Also, it is rare that parts really need to be replaced. They replace them all anyways, but do they really need it? Take a good look at the old ones, and take a good look at the new ones. If you really do get your regs serviced yearly, dive every two or three weeks, and take good care of your gear, and you can see a huge difference in them, I would be surprised.

6. Insurance? What exactly are they insuring? In my experience, all that has been garunteed is that I will have problems. After having problems with a reg after service, I went to a second shop for them to look at it. They assured me it was fine. It wasn't. The problems only got worse. I ended up adjusting the reg myself with tools I made just for that purpose (some funky bent screwdrivers...) to fix the problem. The entire idea of "make sure you do a check out dive on regs when they get back from service" is ludicrous! Why in the world would a regulator need to be checked after service?!? That seems to suggest that regulator servicing is inherently dangerous, and in my experience, this is true. If it's not done by me, I feel that I really cannot trust the work quality. There are only a few people i would trust to work on my life support equipment, and my local dive shop is not in that loop. I trust myself, Marchand, and a guy named PerroneFord who is active on SB, TDS and I believe Cavediver.net. That's about it.

Originally Posted by CompuDude

I get my regs serviced every year.

I have a fantastic tech that has my complete faith, and have not had issues with my regs immediately after service.

If you can't say that last sentence and mean it, then YMMV.

Originally Posted by Compudude

I think we agree, but I wanted to make a couple of final points. YMMV actually refers to the fact the you may not have the same experience as me, given different circumstances. Like I said, if you cannot make the statement I made, then your experiences will not be the same as mine and my experiences and recommendations won't necessarily apply to you.

7. I cannot say that sentence (from first quote) and mean it. Moreover, I can tell you that I thought I had problems, so I went to a second shop for another opinion and they told me it was fine, after charging me $20 and "testing" the regs for me. They also were wrong, and I ended up having to call a dive because of unstoppable second stage freeflowing, on regs that, according to two shops, were in perfect shape with a perfect IP and that were set perfectly in line with spec. I'm not going to take my regulators to those shops ever again, I value my life too much to part with that much money only to have my safety equipment in unsafe condition. (ok, so a freeflow can be dealt with and it wouldn't have killed me, but I really could not get it to stop. It was a problem.)

What do I reccomend? I reccomend that you buy the tools and parts to service your own regs. I also reccomend that you service them when they need it, which will probably be every two to four years. I further reccomend that you take very good care of your life support system, and would suggest that needing service any sooner than every two years means defective parts or poor care on your part.

If you want to pay for yearly service, that's fine by me. I'll even go diving when you need to check them out just to be sure they are safe after you waited a month for them to get serviced. It's an issue that many people are very divided on, and I take a middle stance. I keep close watch over my gear, checking it before every dive, and I would like to keep it getting serviced about every two years even if I personally think it could go longer. I do value my life and I think it's not worth it to push my luck too far. Same reason that I went ahead and changed brake shoes while replacing the wheel cylinder, even though the shoes were only about half gone. It was a pain to remove the shoes to fix the cylinder, I didn't want to do it again any time soon. Might as well lose a few bucks and replace them now. But, for what it's worth, only one wheel cylinder was leaking, so I took the second cylinder back. It did not need to be replaced yet. I did go ahead and replace both sets of pads, though.


If anything I said seems inflammatory, I apologize. I really do think it's ok to get your gear serviced. It won't kill you. I also think it doesn't need to be serviced yearly, and skipping a year won't kill you.

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by JahJahwarrior

For those not acquanted with the "lingo," (as I wasn't, YMMV is new to me) "YMMV" means "your mileage may vary." In this sense, it means "you might disagree and that's ok."

7. I cannot say that sentence and mean it. Moreover, I can tell you that I thought I had problems, so I went to a second shop for another opinion and they told me it was fine, after charging me $20 and "testing" the regs for me. They also were wrong, and I ended up having to call a dive because of unstoppable second stage freeflowing, on regs that, according to two shops, were in perfect shape with a perfect IP and that were set perfectly in line with spec. I'm not going to take my regulators to those shops ever again, I value my life too much to part with that much money only to have my safety equipment in unsafe condition. (ok, so a freeflow can be dealt with and it wouldn't have killed me, but I really could not get it to stop. It was a problem.)

What do I reccomend? I reccomend that you buy the tools and parts to service your own regs. I also reccomend that you service them when they need it, which will probably be every two to four years. I further reccomend that you take very good care of your life support system, and would suggest that needing service any sooner than every two years means defective parts or poor care on your part.

If you want to pay for yearly service, that's fine by me. I'll even go diving when you need to check them out just to be sure they are safe after you waited a month for them to get serviced. It's an issue that many people are very divided on, and I take a middle stance. I keep close watch over my gear, checking it before every dive, and I would like to keep it getting serviced about every two years even if I personally think it could go longer. I do value my life and I think it's not worth it to push my luck too far. Same reason that I went ahead and changed brake shoes while replacing the wheel cylinder, even though the shoes were only about half gone. It was a pain to remove the shoes to fix the cylinder, I didn't want to do it again any time soon. Might as well lose a few bucks and replace them now. But, for what it's worth, only one wheel cylinder was leaking, so I took the second cylinder back. It did not need to be replaced yet. I did go ahead and replace both sets of pads, though.


If anything I said seems inflammatory, I apologize. I really do think it's ok to get your gear serviced. It won't kill you. I also think it doesn't need to be serviced yearly, and skipping a year won't kill you.

I think we agree, but I wanted to make a couple of final points. YMMV actually refers to the fact the you may not have the same experience as me, given different circumstances. Like I said, if you cannot make the statement I made, then your experiences will not be the same as mine and my experiences and recommendations won't necessarily apply to you.

As to servicing my regs every year, well, the parts are free, since I'm under warranty, and $50 seems reasonable for the amount of work that goes into an annual overhaul at this tech (who, as I said, I trust implicitly). Also, his workbench is about 15 minutes from my work, and he turns regs around in under a week. Generally, I drop my regs off on Monday during lunch, and pick them up on Friday, during lunch. Given my usual schedule, it's not such a hardship to skip a weekday night dive at our local mudhole, which is pretty much the only thing I might miss out on in that time period.

If you have to wait a month or more for shoddy service, then my experiences and available options don't really apply to your situation... so YMMV.

[JahJahwarrior]

Compudude--I edited my post to include your explanation of YMMV. Thanks!

And, my shop charged me more like $110, and only about $30 or so of that was parts, if I recall correctly. Maybe $40 They took longer than a week. A second shop charged me $20 to give a "clean bill of health" to some regs that, once I got to a real dive, didn't function properly. The original shop would have adjusted it again, only one week after the original servicing, for another $40. No way jose.

If you have a good shop you can trust, and you have kept up with the freeparts deal, and they only charge $50, it's not so bad and I would reccomend that you do it.