Dive Room - A place to clean, maintain and store my dive gear

[sjreefer]

Over the years diving my gear has seen much more wear and tear then its age would necessitate due to lack of proper care. The main reason that i can see for this is the lack of a proper area to care for my gear.

My last house was a duplex with two flats where i had to carry all my gear up two flights of stairs to clean in our only bathroom. This was definitely not convenient and more often then not my gear was put away too quick, not cleaned completely or not cleaned at all.

I purchased and have been renovating a 1880's stage coach house that suffered extensive fire damage a few years back. Renovations were sufficiently complete to allow me to move in three months ago and the need for a place to store and maintain my gear has been pressing.

The house had the perfect area for this, well sort of... there is an old addition on to the house that is covered and walled in but still mostly open to the elements from two sides. This is the area where they used to house the horses overnight for guests to the stage coach house. This "Horse Hobble" was perfect in the sense that my wife wouldn't kill me for building a room just for my dive gear in it!

I thought i would share my progress for the room on here as i go.

I'm wondering if anyone else out there has a dedicated dive room for their gear?

 

[r-balljunkie]

mostly fresh rinse everything, and back into the dive bag it go's, locked and loaded. i think an outdoor spigot and a hanging rod would suffice. a dedicated room seems a bit much. if you dont feel like stuffing your bcd back into your dive bag, you could just hang it up in a closet. i have an outdoor closet just for all of our dive gear, plus some extra's in case we have visitors. the temperature stays constant year around here, lowest it will get is 75 degrees or so.

i use my dive gear weekly, so there's not much of a need to store long tern..its gonna get used in a few days.

Good Luck!

C

 

[sjreefer]

I'm jealous of your year round constant temperatures!

Today its -15, and our winter lasts for about half of our year so washing our gear outside is not an option (otherwise it would be great)

Even if we could wash our suits outside, i do a lot of underwater photography and i like to soak all my gear in fresh water to ensure all the salt is drawn out of it. A salt crystal in your your buttons can cost you an expensive camera.

Also, quite jealous that you get to dive that often, its a 2 hr trek in each direction to our dive site so we are lucky to get out every other week.

 

[sjreefer]

Here is the design for the room, its a basic 8x8 room with a 2x8 base for the drains. Since this room is sitting on a concrete base i'm using the 2'x2' dricore panels to prevent and condensation from rotting the wood

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37325244@N05/6947417103/" title="wetroom1 by markmcg84, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7203/6947417103_88cd66d441_b.jpg" width="1024" height="499" alt="wetroom1"></a>

Floor structure


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37325244@N05/6801310214/" title="wetroom2 by markmcg84, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/6801310214_c4947e4a0f_b.jpg" width="1024" height="499" alt="wetroom2"></a>

 

[sjreefer]

DRI CORE floor

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37325244@N05/6810143726/" title="Untitled by markmcg84, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6810143726_3448e0ec2a_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt=""></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37325244@N05/6956255295/" title="Untitled by markmcg84, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7192/6956255295_e87a386053_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt=""></a>

walls and floor in

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37325244@N05/6835871018/" title="Untitled by markmcg84, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/6835871018_3ab7dc3d53_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt=""></a>

 

[David P]

Jealous! I want to see pics of the house too! Since you went with a wood floor, I assume your drip rack will be over the tub? If it were mine I would add power for my compressor, room for my tumbler, shelf for my flow meters and what not... The tub is pretty cool, but I was always happy with a couple large brut trash cans on my pool deck or in my garage... I would throw my deco bottles and argon tank in upside down to make sure the valve is cleaned, I also have a 100g stock tank that my doubles fit in pretty nicely. Working on a slab I never cared if I splashed water around. Wait, you do need electricity, for a radio and beer fridge dont you?

 

[sjreefer]

David

I plan on tiling the floor and using a tile baseboard around the walls, its inevitable that water will be splashed throughout the room! That being said the drop rack will be built over the tub, i plan on using 3/4 PT plywood around the tub then putting the tub surround over it so that i can fasten a strong drip rack to the walls.

I like the idea of having a large FW bucket to soak the tanks in, that may come into version 2.

I'm just laying out the electrical now, i'll have outlets space around the room and one on the ceiling over the tub so we can hook up some fans to blow air over the gear.... trying to find space for the beer fridge still!