Had my lift bag valve freeze up on a job in the Puget Sound last week

Was working at 90 feet on a piling repair and the inflator valve on my lift bag just locked open. Bag shot up before I could cut it loose and I lost about 600 bucks in gear that was strapped to it. Anyone else had cold water seize up their valves like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

gonzalez.grant12d ago

Yeah, I'm a little skeptical that a frozen valve is really the main problem there. Cold water can make seals stiff but a full lock open sounds more like a dirty valve or a mechanical failure than just temp. I've worked plenty of dives in the low 40s and never had a lift bag just decide to rocket off on its own.

elizabeth_bailey2612d ago

Read somewhere that a lot of these valves use o-rings that aren't even rated for below 40 degrees, so when they shrink up the air just bypasses everything. @gonzalez.grant makes a fair point about mechanical failure being possible too, but I've seen guys in the San Juans swap to silicone grease on their threads and it helps a ton. Dirty valve or not, once that moisture flash freezes in the mechanism you're pretty much at the mercy of whatever that bag decides to do.

kai_brown2312d ago

Honestly I've had this exact thing happen in Hood Canal a couple years back and @gonzalez.grant is right that it's usually not pure temp alone but I think people underestimate how fast moisture in the valve can freeze when you're working at depth in the low 40s. The real trick is to keep the valve dry before you go down. I started blowing through my inflator with a little canned air before each dive and never had that happen again. Also if you're using a cheap valve with plastic internals they just get stiff way faster than the brass ones do. 600 bucks is a rough loss though man sorry about that.