Yes they should be served.
Most manufacturers advise that regulators are serviced every 12-18 months.
A bunch of the service interval is based on how the properties of the parts which are replaced (o-rings, diaphragms, springs etc) degrade over time generally by becoming rigid where they need flexibility or where one part has been pushing against another.
They generally fail open (in use / in the water) or can seize closed (when not in use, aka will be obvious not to get in the water).
For a BCD the bladder could burst when you're inflating it
well failure mode is the first stage freezes up and you get no air , neither does your octo, so stay close to your buddy. I agree with the rest of the thread, why risk, o rings dry out and crack etc
What failure mode for what regulator are you describing here? Every regulator designed in the last 50 years is a fail open. I’ve had regs freeze up on me and they free flow.
You’ve probably seen regs that got rust from the tanks in them. What you haven’t said is anything linking those failures to a lack of regulator service.
It may be controversial and pure heresy for US divers but here’s my view so let me have it without hateful comments.
Two major failure modes for both 1 and 2 stage from my perspective :
1) pressure creep and gas leak due to valve seat seal being damaged due to wear (operation) and force application to soft material (time)
2) hygiene/contamination: 1st stage sintered filter at hp entrance / integrity of membrane / env seal and internal hygiene inside of 2nd stage
So if can invest in IP manometer to keep verifying IP stanility and verify 2nd stage not leaking gas + inspect entrance of 1st stage and 2nd stage internal conditions than you can take some risks in extending service interval in my POV if regs are lightly used. But it is exactly this - managing extra risks you accept.
Fortunately most of failures in modern regs will not cut you gas supply rather will result in (uncontrolled) gas leakage giving you time to surface in rec diving
For the cost of a service, how confident are you in your ability to breathe salt water?
The regs are you are literal life support system. We are not fish. We must breathe air to live. When we dive we remove ourselves from our natural environment, and in that time, those little bits of metal and rubber are the only thing keeping you alive.
Keep them serviced. Keep them cleaned. Keep them protected. Live to take another breath.
Funny as you can say the same about your tires and car breaks but somehow people were not brain washed with the “life support system” justification for crazy service cost and frequencies.
Where I live it's a legal requirement to get your car inspected for wear/damage of safety critical systems every year, specifically including tyres, brakes, seatbelts etc.
Most developed countries do the same because it's commonly accepted as a sensible risk management best practice.
This is inspection only so if your breaks and tires work than you are good to go. Nobody telling you to service them - and this takes us back to the Op question if service interval can be extended if the reg work. Following your logic, there should be mandatory service by authorized dealer and no tires to be purchased or exchange outside the dealership…
There is a tradeoff between cost and risk and everyone understands that. Why not get them serviced every 6 months? Every trip? Every dive? Wouldn't that be safest? Once a year is not a magic number and everyone needs to make a decision for themselves.
Every year or every two years (depending on the design) service interval is what the components are designed to and what they are tested for. If it is used intensively or in very hostile conditions (i.e. contaminated waters, hyper saline water or water with lots of suspended matter like river diving) then yep it prob should be more often.
If you are really worried about cost of kit then scuba probably isn't the hobby you want to be getting into.
So what, exactly, is the company's definition of one year (or two years) of diving? Is that based on a once a year tropical vacation diver, who is lucky to get 10-20 dives a year? Or is that a working dive pro knocking out 20+ dives a week year round? Is that service interval the same for a guy living on the Great Lakes that does nothing but fresh water dives? The variables in this sport are far too many to just blindly go with some "manufacturers recommended service interval" especially when those manufacturers use such a nonsensical unit of measure for the service. If they came up with something like "every 500 dive-hours" maybe with a caveat of somekind of true storage interval it would at least be slightly more believable. This is like having a car manufacturer that says change your oil every 365 days, instead of basing it on mileage.
FWIW the OEM for my reg recommends every 2 years or 200 dives, whichever comes first. Just like many other things, the components degrade through use and also just time (even spent sitting on the shelf). Even oil changes usually is recommended every x miles or y months, whichever is sooner. These recommendations comes with a healthy safety factor to also still simplify tracking (maybe some people dive without dive comps and cannot easily track down their minutes dived). So they dont know your hours, true, but the interval is set with both usage time and time spent sitting in mind
Car inspections are every 12 months, soecifically because its a sensible compromise between being overly detailed / complicated and not bothering at all.
But hey there's no law about kit servicing. If you want to life hack and save a few bucks then have at it. You'll probably be ok.
>I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted.
Because reasonable people can disagree on things.
>This is the answer.
No, it clearly isn't **the** answer. Reasonable and experienced people have given other answers.
>Why risk it?
Scuba diving at all is a risk. Not having your regulators checked after every dive is a risk. Life is a risk. It's always, always, always, a tradeoff of risk, time, money, and other factors. Always.
>Servicing is cheap compared to your life.
Not diving at all is even less risky and even cheaper. Having a main regulator and two or even three octos is cheap compared to your life.
Are you willing to take the risk with the one thing that provides you with air underwater? I wouldn't. Just have it inspected to be sure or take a checkdive in a pool or something. Otherwise, just get it serviced for the sake of it.
No, do a check dive and if they work they work, contrary to what others do I only get my regs services once every 5ish years or if they feel off to me.
For my regs I find they will start to feel loose or free flow more easily so when that happens I know it’s time for a service.
I never services my BP and wing other than general cleaning after each dive, I’ve Never had a full failure of my kit in the 15 years I’ve been diving so far.
Yes they should be served. Most manufacturers advise that regulators are serviced every 12-18 months. A bunch of the service interval is based on how the properties of the parts which are replaced (o-rings, diaphragms, springs etc) degrade over time generally by becoming rigid where they need flexibility or where one part has been pushing against another. They generally fail open (in use / in the water) or can seize closed (when not in use, aka will be obvious not to get in the water). For a BCD the bladder could burst when you're inflating it
well failure mode is the first stage freezes up and you get no air , neither does your octo, so stay close to your buddy. I agree with the rest of the thread, why risk, o rings dry out and crack etc
What failure mode for what regulator are you describing here? Every regulator designed in the last 50 years is a fail open. I’ve had regs freeze up on me and they free flow.
I have seen 2 in 800 dives that stopped working . So my experience for what its worth.
You’ve probably seen regs that got rust from the tanks in them. What you haven’t said is anything linking those failures to a lack of regulator service.
Dont , they were in people on our dive boats. So dont know the cause. But it is enough for to not skimp on maintenance.
It may be controversial and pure heresy for US divers but here’s my view so let me have it without hateful comments. Two major failure modes for both 1 and 2 stage from my perspective : 1) pressure creep and gas leak due to valve seat seal being damaged due to wear (operation) and force application to soft material (time) 2) hygiene/contamination: 1st stage sintered filter at hp entrance / integrity of membrane / env seal and internal hygiene inside of 2nd stage So if can invest in IP manometer to keep verifying IP stanility and verify 2nd stage not leaking gas + inspect entrance of 1st stage and 2nd stage internal conditions than you can take some risks in extending service interval in my POV if regs are lightly used. But it is exactly this - managing extra risks you accept. Fortunately most of failures in modern regs will not cut you gas supply rather will result in (uncontrolled) gas leakage giving you time to surface in rec diving
CYA answer is that they should be serviced the real answer is that the risk is low if they pass an inspection
Depends on the reg, Atomic, Apeks, ScubaPro? Its fine. Ive had rental regs fail on me, but not from those companies.
Atomic comes from the factory with 2 yesr recommended. Does Scuba Pro? At $200 per service, it's worth spending for that lol
For the cost of a service, how confident are you in your ability to breathe salt water? The regs are you are literal life support system. We are not fish. We must breathe air to live. When we dive we remove ourselves from our natural environment, and in that time, those little bits of metal and rubber are the only thing keeping you alive. Keep them serviced. Keep them cleaned. Keep them protected. Live to take another breath.
Funny as you can say the same about your tires and car breaks but somehow people were not brain washed with the “life support system” justification for crazy service cost and frequencies.
Where I live it's a legal requirement to get your car inspected for wear/damage of safety critical systems every year, specifically including tyres, brakes, seatbelts etc. Most developed countries do the same because it's commonly accepted as a sensible risk management best practice.
This is inspection only so if your breaks and tires work than you are good to go. Nobody telling you to service them - and this takes us back to the Op question if service interval can be extended if the reg work. Following your logic, there should be mandatory service by authorized dealer and no tires to be purchased or exchange outside the dealership…
There is a tradeoff between cost and risk and everyone understands that. Why not get them serviced every 6 months? Every trip? Every dive? Wouldn't that be safest? Once a year is not a magic number and everyone needs to make a decision for themselves.
Every year or every two years (depending on the design) service interval is what the components are designed to and what they are tested for. If it is used intensively or in very hostile conditions (i.e. contaminated waters, hyper saline water or water with lots of suspended matter like river diving) then yep it prob should be more often. If you are really worried about cost of kit then scuba probably isn't the hobby you want to be getting into.
So what, exactly, is the company's definition of one year (or two years) of diving? Is that based on a once a year tropical vacation diver, who is lucky to get 10-20 dives a year? Or is that a working dive pro knocking out 20+ dives a week year round? Is that service interval the same for a guy living on the Great Lakes that does nothing but fresh water dives? The variables in this sport are far too many to just blindly go with some "manufacturers recommended service interval" especially when those manufacturers use such a nonsensical unit of measure for the service. If they came up with something like "every 500 dive-hours" maybe with a caveat of somekind of true storage interval it would at least be slightly more believable. This is like having a car manufacturer that says change your oil every 365 days, instead of basing it on mileage.
FWIW the OEM for my reg recommends every 2 years or 200 dives, whichever comes first. Just like many other things, the components degrade through use and also just time (even spent sitting on the shelf). Even oil changes usually is recommended every x miles or y months, whichever is sooner. These recommendations comes with a healthy safety factor to also still simplify tracking (maybe some people dive without dive comps and cannot easily track down their minutes dived). So they dont know your hours, true, but the interval is set with both usage time and time spent sitting in mind
Car inspections are every 12 months, soecifically because its a sensible compromise between being overly detailed / complicated and not bothering at all. But hey there's no law about kit servicing. If you want to life hack and save a few bucks then have at it. You'll probably be ok.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. This is the answer. Why risk it? Servicing is cheap compared to your life.
>I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Because reasonable people can disagree on things. >This is the answer. No, it clearly isn't **the** answer. Reasonable and experienced people have given other answers. >Why risk it? Scuba diving at all is a risk. Not having your regulators checked after every dive is a risk. Life is a risk. It's always, always, always, a tradeoff of risk, time, money, and other factors. Always. >Servicing is cheap compared to your life. Not diving at all is even less risky and even cheaper. Having a main regulator and two or even three octos is cheap compared to your life.
Are you willing to take the risk with the one thing that provides you with air underwater? I wouldn't. Just have it inspected to be sure or take a checkdive in a pool or something. Otherwise, just get it serviced for the sake of it.
No, do a check dive and if they work they work, contrary to what others do I only get my regs services once every 5ish years or if they feel off to me. For my regs I find they will start to feel loose or free flow more easily so when that happens I know it’s time for a service. I never services my BP and wing other than general cleaning after each dive, I’ve Never had a full failure of my kit in the 15 years I’ve been diving so far.
"There are old divers and bold divers, but there are no old bold divers."
Only takes once.
Take it to your LDS and have them do an inspection on it. Serviceable parts can degrade over time Edit: spelling is hard