Take off on cleanliness

[Angie Reim]

Try rebreathers- Counter lungs, scrubber, and hoses all become part of the divers breathing tract and cleaning the unit is of utmost importance. Imagine not washing your hands and then putting your rebreather together…. Uck

I was thinking about this the other day while rinsing my wings. What about the air bladder. I blow it up occasionally (from the mouth) and it's something that never fully dries out. Is occasionally rinsing it out with tap water good enough? Anyone ever traced it to a source for upper respitory infections? I've suffered a few of late. What should I use to disinfect it without damaging the air bladder material?

Angie

[Dwain]

When you clean your bladder..
Take off the valves.
Wash it with fresh tap water.
Drain.
Use a spot (and I mean a spot) of simple green.
To much simple green will cause a lot of bubbles.
Add air and water to Bladder after replacing valves.
Shake a couple of times.
Drain.
Completely rinse.
Hang to dry with valves open.

I do this a at least 4 of times a year. Maybe I should be doing it more?

[crazyduck]

You can purchase BC Cleaner but I agree that other things would work just as well.

McNett is one of my favorite product lines and they sell a “McNett BC Life Cleaner.”
You can reference the material at their website- http://www.mcnett.com/

One note of caution not all BC bladders are equal.
I have noticed that some manufactures are making bladderless wings. While that reduces the weight I don’t know how in the long term the fabric will stand up to certain chemicals and abrasions verses wings that have plastic inner bladders. Just a thought.

Andrew

[Dwain]

One note of caution not all BC bladders are equal.
I have noticed that some manufactures are making bladderless wings. While that reduces the weight I don’t know how in the long term the fabric will stand up to certain chemicals and abrasions verses wings that have plastic inner bladders. Just a thought.

Your most likely correct on the bladderless wings... I use a DR Classic of course it has a bladder. I have two of them, one for a back up. The back I've only had to use once for those reasons. My primary wing is about 4 years old. Taking care of it will make it last much longer.

Each time I take my wings apart I do a leak test... I fill it with air from my tank and let it sit over night full of air. If it's still full in the morning... It's ready for my next dive.

[arnie]

I have been rinsing bcd's for years, just a good rinse on the out side and inside, drain out all water, air up the cell, hang out. Now regulators are a little different, you need a good rinse on the regs, around the mouth piece, make sure you dry off good by shaking the reg vigorously. Leaving water standing in the mouth piece can cause flue like symptoms. Never rinse your reg in a rinse bin used by many people rinsing everything, especially wet suits, and we know wht divers do in wet suits. Imagine you rinsing your reg in the same bin. Sure to develope flue like symptoms after a couple days diving. And you do not know where it came from.