- Hi, esteemed fans and welcome back.
In this video, I'm gonna round out my series
on cleaning your core equipment.
We've previously looked at routine cleaning
for regulators and BCDs
and now I'm turning my attention to dry suits.
Now it has to be said,
dry suits are pretty robust pieces of kit,
but regular maintenance and care,
will ensure that your costly exposure protection
continues doing what is supposed to,
keeping you dry and warm.
For those here for the first time, my name's Mark,
I'm the editor in chief of the Scuba Diver media brand.
And welcome to the Scuba Diver YouTube channel.
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Now, let's dive into that video.
(upbeat music)
So, cleaning the dry suit.
Best way of doing this, I find,
is to hang it up on your little drying rack
like I've got here.
Now, I've used a dry suit hanger
which hooks onto the feet, I'll show you later on.
Hooks onto the feet and it holds up your dry suit
so that you can get to it all like this.
Now, that is great if you've got a dry suit
that's got boots on.
If you've got one that has rock boots
and you've only got the soft shoes on the bottom,
one of those hangers won't work
'cause it'll just pull through.
But then you can always just throw it
over the top of the rail and put it on that way
or something like that.
Anyway, once you got it like this,
first thing I'd do is just give it a good rinse down first.
Important tip, make sure your zips done up.
A number of times I've seen people
rinsing their dry suits off like this
with the zip wide open.
Well, of course, all that's gonna do
is get a lot of water in around the shoulder area inside,
so, you don't wanna be doing that.
All right.
(water gushing)
I'll just give it a really good rinse like that
and then spin it round,
give the other side a do as well.
(water gushing)
Now, one thing I do tend to do
is pay close attention to the inflator valve
and also to the dump valve on the shoulder
and just really give them a good spray.
Make sure you get lots of water inside there.
just give it a bit of a workup to get everything out.
So if it is, just give it a really good rinse
given the mechanism of it, have a go while you spraying it,
it just gives it all a good clean out.
Also make sure that the zip's had a good spray as well.
Important things to remember;
if you've got a plastic TiZip like this,
make sure that you lubricate this on every dive.
Now, I've made this mistake
where I felt that there's enough on there.
"I'll be fine for this dive."
And I've ended up getting wet.
So take my advice, always check this.
A little bit around that, that's all you need
and you should be dry.
If you've got a traditional metals zip,
then I would advise you
periodically, maybe once every six or seven wears,
give it a good go with the wax
that you'll have got with it.
Just to wax there, open down,
really (indistinct) into the teeth,
move the zip back and forth several times
just to make sure that it's running easy,
and then you will not risk any damage to your zip
and it will last a lot longer.
If you got any areas of your suit, that should be enough,
what I've done that is enough.
If you've been for a dive in freshwater,
obviously, what I've done there
should be enough to rinse it off and clean it.
If you've got any areas of your suit
that are particularly grubby,
if you've been kneeling down on the shoreline in the dirt
doing a rescue calls, for instance,
or the soles of the shoes are absolutely filthy,
then what I suggest
is utilizing the set up that I did the BCDs in,
which is inside the plastic box
that I carry the stuff back and forth to the dive sites in,
put a bit of water in that and then you can put
the offending part of your suit in there.
I'd intend to use a good old scuba brush like this.
You can get right into all of the soles, clean them up.
If you need to really give any parts a rub,
you can give it on with this.
But again, make sure you don't submerge your whole suit
because otherwise it will become a wet suit
rather than a dry suit.
But if you can do this, you should make sure
that your very expensive exposure protection
keeps you warm and dry for the foreseeable future.
What are some of your hints and advice
for keeping your dry suit in tip top condition?
Any neat tricks to pass on to your fellow divers?
Leave your comments below.
And if you have a question, fire away.
Because if we can't answer it,
maybe someone in our community will be able to.
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As always, stay safe.
And if you're one of the lucky people
who live somewhere you're able to get out and dive,
enjoy yourself.