My Diving 'Shed'

Diving Pete said:
One of my other sports is scuba diving & in that time I've amassed some kit.... This is my shed...lol


Dive Shed by Diving Pete, on Flickr

Compressor by Diving Pete, on Flickr

Mixing Panel by Diving Pete, on Flickr

It took me about 6 months to get the shed to this point but it functions very well...lol
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I just showed this to my colleague and she's practically drooling.
She and her husband are very keen divers, and although they have a garage that resembles this, she is blown away by your neatness.
I'll never forget the first time I saw all their geear.....the dry suits looked like corpses hanging up! :LOL:
 
The reality is by the time you get to 52 cylinders (!) you HAVE to be neat... lol

The garage is where I put all my 'expensive kit' - & I'll try and get some pics of that.... but another time....
I used to do about 100 mixed gas dives a year (Helium, Oxygen) & this all started when I did 1 dive that (80m for 25 minutes) cost me over £120 in just gas....
This was in 2005.
To be fair this has cost me a fair amount more .....
 
My passion at the moment is Exploration Cave Diving... & the kit for that is 'interesting'.....
 
I served my time with a diving company who manufactures Diving Bells and decompression chambers to companies all over the world including RN.
It looks like you have a good setup there Pete and your well addicted :)
 
I am well impressed........................:)
 
n0chex said:
I served my time with a diving company who manufactures Diving Bells and decompression chambers to companies all over the world including RN.
It looks like you have a good setup there Pete and your well addicted :)
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Funnilly enough, we made our own decompression Bell for a exploration trip - 10 hr in water time - max depth 92m !!! It really adds to the logistics as it was sat under a roof @6m - 4 of us manhandled it in !!


I dive a rebreather & sometimes stage another on route & well as lots of cylinders, multiple scooters etc, etc....... !!!!!

Its logistics that is the hardest thing to get right - the dives are the easy part...lol
 
As above impressed Pete and I can see you have some money in your equipment as I had a 12ltre 300Bar bottle which I use to refill air rifles.
 
Thanks, the big grey cylinders are my air bank - have 9 x 68 litres in total - each weighs 158kg empty...lol, I usually only pump to 280ish bar - but if I need more pressure than that I fire up the Haskel 15/30 Booster using the blue compressor - that works really well...
 
I remember sending some alloys wheels & tyres via courier and I told the bloke I would let the air out the tyres as they would weigh less .......he laughed and thought I was taking the wee wee and said air don't weigh anything :)
 
Just out of interest I presume you dive with 2x 12 ltr tanks and a small backup 3litre , what dive time would you get average?
 
what a set up.
I always wanted to give diving a try but have never got around to it yet.
Maybe this year.
 
Thanks to their size and paint job, your air tanks along the back wall make it look like your dive shed is equipped with Polaris missiles. :wideyed:
 
n0chex said:
Just out of interest I presume you dive with 2x 12 ltr tanks and a small backup 3litre , what dive time would you get average?
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Nope,

Haven't dived a twinset since 2004.... I dive mainly in 3 configs:

Rebreather with 1, 2 or 3 Ally 80's as bailout - dependant on dive.

sidemount - (really small areas or unknown) - 2 or 4 x 7 litres

Dual rebreather - making this at mo !!! as staging the amount of cylinders required for long exploration dives is a real pain & requires a concerted team effort.....lol

With 2 x 12 & a 3 litre as backup - I'd be looking at + 2hrs....

Single alloy 80 (11 litre) pumped to 200bar, got out with 50 bar after 75mins - had 18mins deco - lol -made the dive guide laugh !!!
 
n0chex said:
I remember sending some alloys wheels & tyres via courier and I told the bloke I would let the air out the tyres as they would weigh less .......he laughed and thought I was taking the wee wee and said air don't weigh anything :)
Click to expand...
you can really notice the weight of air when diving with alloy cylinders - i normally use a couple of Kgs !!!
 
enived said:
what a set up.
I always wanted to give diving a try but have never got around to it yet.
Maybe this year.
Click to expand...

Thanks - give it a try - its fun - just remember to relax & have fun


Tori_T said:
Thanks to their size and paint job, your air tanks along the back wall make it look like your dive shed is equipped with Polaris missiles. :wideyed:
Click to expand...

good thing I didn't show you the ones along the side of my house - lol.....(have 4 there too...):whistle:

I worked out that in total my cylinders weigh 2195.82Kg...getting 600kg out of the shed made sense to me....:D

I'll add that pic later
 
You must have a large estate car or a van to lump those large cylinders to test centres :) , I know our 300Bar cylinders need testing every 5 years if the gauge is part of the cylinders valve, if a separate gauge attached to the cylinder then it's 3 years.
 
viv1969 said:
she is blown away by your neatness.
Click to expand...

A clean work place is a happy work place :D I'm the same with my garage but that's mainly to keep it clean for spray painting. I even painted the floor for ease of cleaning lol
 
n0chex said:
You must have a large estate car or a van to lump those large cylinders to test centres :) , I know our 300Bar cylinders need testing every 5 years if the gauge is part of the cylinders valve, if a separate gauge attached to the cylinder then it's 3 years.
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I have 3 estates --- lol
 
The standard 48/50 litre J cylinder is only cirrca 60 Kg & have 4.5mm walls... The monsters at the back are Mk 12's - 275bar rated, 12mm walls - 158 Kg they take a toll of the vehicles...:p
 
Bloody hell thats not a hobby its an obsession :)
 
A small lorry would suit you better.....:)
 
In my defence, my lovely wife also dives.... just not at the moment lol :D

I'll try & dig out some pictures of the last expedition...

2 rebreather divers (myself & one other) = 3 x underwater scooters, 5 x rebreathers, 26 x cylinders (various sizes), 1.6km diving cave line, 1 km rope - total, 1 x petrol winch, 1 x electric winch, 1 x underwater habitat, 2 x electric generators, 150 x carabiner, 6 sets full cave gear, 5 people total all in 2 vehicles & a trailer - Ifor BV106 behind a Transit...

& yes - breathing water isn't recommended - if you need it for the trip you get it.


Pete
 
Some pictures would be good Pete and look forward to seeing them.
 
Don't think this could be regarded as "Sports Diving" most of these rigs could be used commercially :) What flag do you fly, PADI or BSAC ?

I got hooked to diving in the early 80s, just a great feeling under water, bit like space, suppose thats why they train astronauts in pools.

Had to give it up when I became a "fair weather diver ;)" and then knees started playing up BUT I have some great memories of dives in St Abbs, Thailand, Philippines and Egypt.
 
I used to be a PADI Assistant Instructor but there is no money in sports diving & couldn't afford to do it full time..
so then followed the technical route (TDI) into rebreathers & cave diving & went from there....
 
I suppose you could describe yourself as "full immersed in diving" ....BOOM BOOM :D
 
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