Hydro AND vis

[nwbobber]

I have seen some conflicting info regarding the requirement for vip at the time of hydro. Back when (80's) it was accepted that a tank was in vis for a year after it was hydro'd. Now after my thirty year surface interval I got my tanks hydro'd and the LDS also charged me for the vis. Someone on scubaboard made the statement that what was before, still is. He said a vis is required as part of hydro, and that it may not be unethical to charge for a vis if the tank had to be transported with no pressure or if the lds did the vis before sending it to hydro, but if you went to the tester, and had them fill the tank after it was tested dried and stamped there would be no reason to need a separate vip inspection. It seems that hydrotesting facilities charge from 15 to 20 bucks for the hydro, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to pay 10-15 bucks to do a vip on it before sending it to hydro, unless the outside looks like it has been through the mill.

Any one have any definitive knowledge on this?
Bob

[Dmitchell]

My Hydro price includes the visual, decal, new neck O-ring and new burst disk and the fill. We always do a cursory visual before taking tanks to the Hydro guy. When they come back we do a full visual and reassemble them. Even though I know that my hydro guy is very anal about the process and I know for a fact that he does a complete visual to PSI standard on every cylinder, we do it again. It only take about 3-4 minutes once the tank is apart.

In the last few years DOT has upped the requirements on what the "visual" that hydro facilities are required to perform. They are doing eddy current testing on AL cylinders which is now required. Before that, it was just a peek inside and yep it's clean. Even now, you can't say for sure that the hydro facility is doing a visual to the standards that we in the Scuba industry expect. Alot of hydro facilities are in gas plants where they are working on big bottles and the requirement for visual are still pretty lax.

I know that a few years ago, there was a facility in the Seattle area that got caught just stamping tanks and never even looking at them much less hydro'ing them.

So my answer is who knows, there is no real standard rule on it.

Here's an interesting read on visual decals and the terminology used. Notice the comments on DOT inspectors (hydro guys).
http://www.psicylinders.com/library/Cur ... 202005.htm


Dave

[Aquanautchuck]

Last year I had to get two tanks hydro-ed on short notice. I took them into the place my dive shop does and still needed to get a VIP on them. Kind of tweaked me a bit.