Terrible Dive shops

[butch103]

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.

[BamaCaveDiver]

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.

[deep flight]

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. . .

[hbh2oguard]

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!

[Sarah]

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.

[Zero]

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

[seasnake]

Wow, iDiveChick, remind me not to sue you ...

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 ...

[BamaCaveDiver]

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!

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.

[BamaCaveDiver]

Wow, iDiveChick, remind me not to sue you ...

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 ...

Annual visual inspections of SCUBA cylinders is not a law in the US, it is an industry standard.

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.

[deep flight]

wow! pretty and smarts! and a diver to boot!! i'm in love!!!

on second thought, she's scary!!!