Northwest Dive Club

I thought I would try here before buying a new exhaust valve. Does anyone have exhaust valve they would be willing to trade, sell, or donate?

Also, I have never "glued" my exhaust valves down. I believe DUI glues them in. Any recommendations on whether or not to glue your exhaust or inflator valve into your drysuit?

Thanks for your help.

DUI goes overboard on the glue which basically creates a big aquaseal gasket. You can screw a new one into that gasket without any glue. If you tried to do that on the base fabric (minus the factory glue somehow) it would for sure leak.

On brands with a rubber donut/gasket you don't need glue at all.

I recommend the fill size sitec valves, the apeks ones (default on a DUI suit among others) are terrible.

Thanks Captn. I just keep getting a leak at the exhaust valve. Suit is new and I'm on my second one. I have not used glue, but thought it might be helpful given the issues I am having.

Okay, I just did an extensive leak test and found no evidence of a leak around the valve. So here is my next question. I typically dive with the valve wide open and use my suit for buoyancy during the dive (I know the debate between using BCD and Drysuit so please do not go there). My question is can water enter through the valve while dumping? It seems I get 20-30 dry dives and then the shoulder dump starts leaking. I think I know the answer. But I would love to hear if this is a common occurrence or not. Thanks.

Yeah, its not likely the lack of glue unless its just super loose Is it leaking underwater or just when you are doing the surface swim? It shouldn't leak, but some have a bit of propensity for leaking with the sloshing of a surface swim when open all the way, but will work fine once underwater, so the answer there is to close it a few notches for surface swimming and see if that helps. If it leaks a lot/leaks all the time and its a new suit, then have them replace it and whine/bitch/moan till they do right by you.

ljjames wrote:Yeah, its not likely the lack of glue unless its just super loose Is it leaking underwater or just when you are doing the surface swim? It shouldn't leak, but some have a bit of propensity for leaking with the sloshing of a surface swim when open all the way, but will work fine once underwater, so the answer there is to close it a few notches for surface swimming and see if that helps. If it leaks a lot/leaks all the time and its a new suit, then have them replace it and whine/bitch/moan till they do right by you.

Great advice. I do have it wide open when I enter the water, swim, and exit. It only leaks a little bit. I will shut it down on entry and exit and open at depth. I will report back if that fixed the issue.

Not familiar with the Apeks, but I know some Sitechs will leak a tad if wide open. Crank it down 1/4-1/2 turn generally stops that without compromising the valve action.

My left arm was getting damp on my old suit, and I assumed it was my valve as well. Drove me crazy until I replace my zipper and found out that was the culprit. Water can travel in funny ways in a dry suit.

I will second all the other advice, though, about replacing the valve if it's an Apeks and cranking it down a bit on surface swims.