Bottle up/Bottle Down...

[Salman1]

A real quick one here...I was posed this question last night at a friends holiday party from a non-fire public safety individual....Why are SCBA bottle valves on the bottom and SCUBA bottle valves on top? Why are the bottle's reversed instead of the same? Is there any concrete reason out there short of aesthetics etc?...Opinions/knowledge please....

[RyanEMVFD]

I wondered this awhile back myself. Only thing I could come up with was it having to do with SCUBA being under water and the pressure. Aside from that with the valve down it is harder to get tangled up than it would be with the valve up.

[VinnieB]

Its protected better in the down position. Plus, its for ergonomics....its easier to turn the mask on.

[Manx203]

I'd agree with the safety/protection aspect.
There's a lot more can go wrong when the gear is behind your head.
It' funny - my brother teaches diving; the two of us never had anything in ommon until we both started breathing rom bottles.

[cdemarse]

Its protected better in the down position. Plus, its for ergonomics....its easier to turn the mask on.

correct but you cant turn your mask on you turn your air pack on.
damn new yorkers

[firefiftyfive]

So you mean I have'nt been turning on my mask and putting on my facepiece???

[cdemarse]

So you mean I have'nt been turning on my mask and putting on my facepiece???

you are correct

you have been turning on your air pack/bottle and putting on your facepiece/mask

[VinnieB]

correct but you cant turn your mask on you turn your air pack on.
damn new yorkers

...What's your brother say about that.....?????

[cdemarse]

...What's your brother say about that.....?????

he's in denile

[MEck51]

On modern scuba packs you are running 3-5 hoses out of the regulator, whereas with the scba only one. It is a pain in the but having 4 hoses up top with the scuba, but if it was wraped all around your body it would realy suck. So I would go with a combo of streamlining by having things that may get caught up lower on an scba, beings the average guy usaly has his head higher and butt lower even if he shouldn't. And with the scuba less hoses = more streamlined. But than again my theory could just be a load of crap.

[lutan1]

I was with the others- they're down to protect the valve and to prevent entanglement...

[VinnieB]

he's in denile

What's he doin' in Eygpt....???

[cdemarse]

What's he doin' in Eygpt....???

{insert A}

[CIFRmountainman]

One word for why we wear our bottles down? Tradition. <chuckle> besides, in a RIT drill as "the dummy" it'd be harder to have the valve closed for you on the carpet as you're dragged out if the stem were up.

Seriously, I believe it's due to the design of our helmets. They require clearance behind your neck which doesn't really jive with having the bottle stem-up.

Just my $0.02

[dmleblanc]

Seriously, I believe it's due to the design of our helmets. They require clearance behind your neck which doesn't really jive with having the bottle stem-up.

Probably the best answer yet...I'll buy that....

Also the entanglement issue, not to mention debris falling from above damaging the valve if it was on top...also, having hoses coming over your shoulder could interfere with shouldering hose packs, tools, ladders, etc.

[FlyingKiwi]

Not only to prevent entanglement.

Enough rubbing against hoses obstructions etc, and bingo, you have closed the valve.

Picture the wildest dance you have ever seen, while he tries to reach the damn valve behind his neck.

[captjab]

I think mostly it's because of when we conduct our searches, the liklyhood of us banging into stuff while crawling around would have a severe impact on the neck of the bottle. Geeez look how many times we hit our head on objects. lol

[mcaldwell]

OK, so I'm going to look at this from another angle.

SCBA is older than SCUBA, and I have never seen a valve-up SCBA system. So I wouldn't ask why our valve is down (I'll accept it just because we were first, and that's just the way it is), but rather why SCUBA valves are up?