Sport Chalet is a joke of a dive shop. They refused to fill my tanks because they were painted. Never had a problem ANYWHERE but there. My dive buddy always goes there and always gets short fills. Go anywhere else but Sport Chalet!
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Sport Chalet is a joke of a dive shop. They refused to fill my tanks because they were painted. Never had a problem ANYWHERE but there. My dive buddy always goes there and always gets short fills. Go anywhere else but Sport Chalet!
Did they elaborate on why because it was painted they wouldnt fill it? Was it covering the neck stampings?
Maybe they were concerned about the liability of filling a tank that may have been heat cured by someone other then the factory and thus the aluminum could concievably lose it's temper and tensile strength.
Considering filling tanks is a loss leader item, I can GUARANTEE you if a tank exploded and caused an injury as a result of improperly cured paint any lawyer who slept through law school would seize upon that issue.
No none of the stamps were covered. It was just spray paint on a steel 72. It was easy to tell it was spray painted because old VIP stickers were falling off, and you could see the old paint. They gave no explination. They told me they could refuse any tank that they wanted to. Took it to a local dive shop (where I usually go) and they laughed..... told me that if they didn't fill a painted tank that they would never fill a tank at all. They went on to say what do you expect, that's why they work at Sport Chalet. Just goes to show how much corporations suck!
Quote:
Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
Well you are a bit off base here. Now that you are pissed at me I will tell you why. A cylinder fill is not a right it's a privileged. When you bring a cylinder to me for filling I have to take a risk in filling it. The risk is that the cylinder is reasonably safe to fill. That means it has a current hydro test, it has a valid visual inspection sticker, it does not appear to be damage, mishandled, subjected to heat or has hidden corrosion.
The explosive force of a scuba cylinder is enought to take off the side of a building. Enough to shear a man in half. It's a bomb and WILL fail if damaged.
ANY cylinder that comes into my place that has been painted, or has more than ONE current visual inspection sticker on it, or is covered with "stickers" will not be filled unless we perform a visual inspection on that tank. Paint and stickers can hide corrosion that could lead to cylinder failure.
Sport Chalet is following prudent procedure. Don't blame them for wanting to protect thier employees, customers, and property.
Hang in there.
Cheers
But you CAN blame the applicant's trial lawyers association.
Just a thought.... why dont you buy a compressor and learn to fill tanks. Then, YOU can fill every crappy, missused, heat cured, corroded tank and risk your own health and safety! Sport Chalet can send all their "rejects" to you and then there wont be any unhappy people with empty tanks in the world :o)Quote:
Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
It is always an option. Would you stand next to your tanks while they are getting that big fill you asked for? Need a hot fill? Willing to not sue whoever is in control when your body parts go seperate ways due to any of this? Why do people tend to err on the side of caution? Because the one in a million does happen. Thats why its one and not none.Quote:
Originally Posted by new_2_scuba
Matt
I not mad at anyone. I'm trying to prove one point, support your local dive shop not a corporation. I would buy a compressor but it doesn't economically make sense. I would also have no problem standing next to my tanks as they are getting filled. They comply with all regulations and are just as safe as any one of your tanks.
That is a tough call hbh20guard. Did you paint them yourself? Or do you mean they were painted from the factory? If they are refusing to fill ANY painted tank than yeh, that is a bit overboard since a lot of tanks arrive brand new from the distributor painted. But employees who are taught to operate the fill panel are probably taught, and rightly so, to be wary of home paint jobs for the reasons previously mentioned. It was good you took them to a place that knows you and knows your tanks, they'd probably be more understanding.
What is Sport Chalet, anyway? That is a dive shop chain?
I agreewith JS1 that I will not fill a "home" painted tank without doing a vis on the tank! Also kudos to Sport Chalet for not filling it! If your LDS did the vis on the tank than that is why they will fill it. They know the tank. If the LDS whom laughed an filled it hasn't done the vis, well I would hate to be their insurance company. The potential to cause some serious harm to an employee or owner for a loss leader air fill??? And you still deal with them?? Hope you don't train with them!!
Short fills then hey Sport Chalet deserves a slap!
Don't get pissy on safety.
Joel said all that needs saying. Paint can hide evidence of corrosion and other damage to the exterior of a cylinder, just as can stickers. Most LDS's do not make a killing from their fill stations (most are lucky just to break even) so why take chances? I have known of several shops that will not accept EOI's (visual inspection decals) from unknown sources; if it is not their decal (or from someone they know to be credible) they will only fill the cylinder after they have done their own visual inspection. I would rather use the services of such shops that take extra precautions than to give money to those who laugh at the very rules which were developed to keep us safe. I have been that one in a million incident, it is not a whole helluva lot of fun.
if you ask me, any shop can refuse to fill tanks. anyway, its their lost revenue. i think the guys at sport chalet are just being prudent. who doesn't want customers? right or wrong, they have their reasons. its a matter of opinion. . .
My local dive shop laughed at the idea because they knew the tanks were safe! they are a very reputible dive shop, not a sporting goods store! Any VIP sticker should be good anywhere becasue all dive shops should have the exact same standards of passing or failing a VIP. It wasn't the fact that they didn't fill them, it's that I had a fill card that I used on the exact same tanks and they would give me a prorated refund. Go to a real dive shop, not a sporting goods store!
You have to know something though, when it comes to personal injury lawyers, it is NEVER about common sense, it is about finding any rediculous possible angle and exploiting it.
As an example, a personal injury lawyer would have a FIELD DAY exploiting the fact that a dive shop trusts the visual inspection of another dive shop:
Defendant dive shop: We saw the tank had a visual inspection sticker on it that was current
Lawyer: Did your company perform that visual inspection?
Defendant dive shop: No
Personal injury lawyer: You can swear under oath that you have personal information on who specifically performed the visual then?
Defendant dive shop: no
Personal injury lawyer: So for all you know, someone could have put the sticker on without even making a visual, isn't that right Mr. Negligent dive shop owner?
Personal Injury lawyer: Lets incorrectly assume a visual was made by the other dive shop as you now admit you can't attest to. Have you personally trained the employee of the other hypothetical dive shop to have performed that visual properly?
Defendantdive shop: No
Personal injury lawyer: So you cannot swear under oath here today then that the employee of the other dive shop was qualified in ANY manner whatsoever, can you?!
Personal injury lawyer: Since you've now admitted that for all you know, the sticker could have been just placed on with no visual, or by a person utterly unqualified, why didn't you refuse to fill the tank till you performed a visual inspection?
End of case, slam dunk for the trial lawyer.
This is how slimebag lawyers work, and there is no getting out of it. It is the reason why 30% of your physician/surgeon bill goes just to pay their malpractice insurance.
We dont have the worry of visuals here every year but we do have to hydro our tanks yearly. If the necks not stamped not many shops will fill your tank. Some have a weird understanding of how the stamps work and try to get you by saying its valid to the start of the month but really its valid until the end of the month. It does clear a lot of confusion by not having stickers that may come off or even placed on another tank but it does mean added stress on the tank every year and O2 cleaning them yearly as well if needed.
Matt
Wow, iDiveChick, remind me not to sue you ... :p
This brings up an interesting point. In Canada, there is only a law that the tank must be hydro'd every five years. But there is no law at all saying a tank must be visually inspected annually. I believe it is the same in the US. That is a dive industry standard, but not a gov't regulation. Even though outfits like PSI started a program to train visual inspectors, there are no gov't standards or applicable laws, and in actuality it is true that any Joe can stick a vip sticker on his tank and be just as legal as the guy who took a course from PSI, TDI or whoever.
That being said, obviously a dive shop is allowed to refuse any tank any time they want on whatever grounds they want. It may not be good for business but it certainly is within their right. And I would think there would be an argument for lack of due diligence if annual vips are at least a dive industry recommendation and yet a shop ignored it and there was an accident.
Another note: several folks around here went out and took visual inspection courses from different agencies so they could inspect their own tanks, but then some of the same shops that taught them won't accept their tanks because they weren't inspected by a "shop". This is more a case of being petty about losing a couple bucks on the inspection, but ...
All inspections should be conducted to the same standards, but the truth is that they are not. I opted to get certified and inspect my own cylinders after encountering some of the less desirable inspectors out there. Even prior to gaining the education though, I did know that using an eddy machine to test steel cylinders was wrong (at least he was honest and admitted that he had to pay for the machine somehow, and since the majority of his customers used steel cylinders...) I also knew that O2 cleaning involved a bit more than looking inside the cylinder, saying, "yep, looks good to me" and then affixing a new sticker that states the cylinder has been properly cleaned to industry standards for O2 service. The fact that such inspectors are actually doing more than some is the really frightening part; some are doing little more than buying EOI stickers off the internet or sourcing them from friends and merely replacing the outdated ones on their cylinders without so much as a quick glance. For these reasons and others, some shops have adopted a policy of not honoring generic EOI stickers, while other shops have adopted a policy of not honoring any that they cannot personally confirm the validity of the inspector. Since these guys are the ones paying hefty liability insurance fees to keep the doors to their business open so that they can sell gas fills to those who insist on buying equipment over the internet, I say more power to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
Annual visual inspections of SCUBA cylinders is not a law in the US, it is an industry standard.Quote:
Originally Posted by seasnake
I would be leery of a shop that certified an inspector but then refused to honor those credentials, unless they know that the individual is doing a substandard job. Most shops will usually invite students to come in and make use of shop equipment for a couple of bucks.
wow! pretty and smarts! and a diver to boot!! i'm in love!!!
on second thought, she's scary!!!:p
Bama I fully agree that every VIP isn't the same, and it seems like diving down south is a pain in the butt. Hydo's every year, I guess it's safer but must add up and just seems a little overkill.
It does add up i just had 5 of my tanks hydrod. A$100 for all of them and then a fill is on top of that. I was lucky because i found a test station near me but if you go thru a shop its A$40-50 per tank at least including the fill. A$10 saved per tank adds up pretty quick when you have a few and your willing to take them to the test station. Add ontop of all that recleaning the tanks for O2 service and the price is even more. On the good side of things i cant remember the last time a tank went pop. Burst disks help as well.
Matt
welll that's not terrible
Hydro is no substitute for a good visual inspection. Some friends recently proved that when they found three cracks in an AL cylinder that had just come back from hydro (and had passed!) Water will not be pushed through smaller cracks and deficiencies the same way that air will, so a hydro will not find every deficiency. After noting the cracks in that AL cylinder, they got the hydro station to agree to let them test a few sample cylinders to see if this was a true miss or just a rare occurance. Their testing confirmed that a cylinder can pass hydro with neck cracks present. I will see if I can find the pics of that cylinder and post them if you are interested.
It would be neat to see those pics. Makes sense though ... the hydro isn't specifically looking for neck cracks, gouges, rust ... it is just testing the cylinder's ability to expand and bounce back . . .
The hydro test uses water under pressure to measure cylinder expansion. What my friends found out is the water will not pass through some neck cracks as easy as air will. These photos show three neck cracks detected during a VIP on an AL 80 that had just come back from hydro (it passed hydro with flying colors.Quote:
Originally Posted by seasnake
http://www.scubamagazine.net/photo/s....php?photo=118
http://www.scubamagazine.net/photo/s....php?photo=119
http://www.scubamagazine.net/photo/s....php?photo=120
http://www.scubamagazine.net/photo/s....php?photo=121
http://http://www.scubamagazine.net/....php?photo=122
that's a little scary, but that's why with every hydro you have to get a VIP
There was a pretty good debate circulating about prior to this incident as whether a VIP was needed in conjunction with a hydro. Many argued that the hydro should suffice if the techs looked for dents and dings. Looks like they were wrong. It is interesting to note that the two guys who found this cylinder (and took the photos) like to experiment, ala the myth busters of the scuba industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
OOOO wheres them pics?:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by BamaCaveDiver
Matt
They're in the ScubaMagazine Gallery!
Thanks Bama, scary cyliner photos!
The pics of the cylinder are in the gallery. They took them as they discovered the leaks while filling the cylinder (the cylinder had just came back from passing hydro so it should be okay to fill, right? wrong!) I am not sure how much pressure they had in it when they noticed the bubbling, but both of them were reported to be dancing around for a few minutes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zero
I wish they had some photos of some of the other wild experiments they have concocted over the years, like showing that any composition of oring can be turned into to cinders if it is hit with enough pressure just right.
Please post them when you get some. Nothing like the destruction of otherwise perfectly working objects just for laughs.Quote:
Originally Posted by BamaCaveDiver
We do get visual inspections out here with hydros. They also do an eddy something or other. Not too fluent in the technical terms but it sounded like it picked up neck and thread cracks thats the eyes miss. Could be wrong though.
Matt
Usually they are doing it to satisfy their own curiosity when things get slow and they are a bit bored. I think after the incident with that cylinder they may start recording a bit more of their findings for future reference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zero
The Eddy test exposes crakcs and voids not readily visible by recording spikes as an electrical field is introduced across the medium. The machine has to be tuned to the alloy being tested, so they were only effective on certain AL alloys in the past, but have been enhanced to be useful on the newer alloys (still not useful on steel despite what some testers may say as they attempt to pay for their machine.) You use the Eddy test to gain an idea of where the crack is, and then look under high magnification to positively indentify it. An unskilled tester can easily produce false positives simply by not turning the probe through the threads at a slow steadt rate, so the visual follow up is definitely required to fail the cylinder.
How Common is it to get bad air and then go underwater and get Vertigo and a headach and get sick, thats so cool to see underwater, fish everwhere!!! haha GROSS