Maintenance Tips | Maintaining Your Hoses
Here we try to offer guidance and assistance on selecting inspecting & maintaining.
Cleaning your hoses
As with all diving equipment, Miflex hoses require regular checks and maintenance and should be cleaned down after each dive to ensure they remain in good condition and to allow for regular checks.
When cleaning of your Miflex hoses and fittings to reduce the build-up of lime scale, this should be carried out with a de-scaling agent based on citric acid. As with all brass fittings, over a period of time a small build up of scale is possible and care should be taken to carefully remove this to prevent damage or restriction to the use of the hose.
A descaler based on phosphoric acid should not be used as this would cause damage to the outer layers of the hose.
Please find below details of resistance to descalers as recommended by Miflex
- Resistant to Dekalin® at room temperature
- Resistant to Descaler (based (10% of the weight) on formic, acetic, citric acids) at room temperature
- Limited resistance to Descaler (based (10% of the weight) on formic, acetic, citric acids) at a temperature of 50°C (prolonged exposure to the medium may cause irreversible damage)
- Resistant to Descaler (based (10% of the weight) on sodium hydrogen sulfate) at room temperature
- Limited resistance to Detergent soln, heavy duty (<10% of the weight) at 80°C (prolonged exposure to the medium may cause irreversible damage)
General care of your Miflex hose.
Never expose your hose to any heat source , never allow your hose to be crushed. Never allow sand water or any other foreign object to enter your hose.
In order to limit and remove water or contaminants from all flexible hoses you should, after each dive, rinse your regulator assembly in fresh water, dry it thoroughly, attach the 1st stage to a pressurized cylinder and repeatedly purge the 2nd stage(s) and actuate the inflator of the BC jacket and the dry suit valve after having connected the respective hoses.
While in storage or during transport your hoses could become damaged in a number of ways. Never use your hose as a carrying or hanging handle for the tank. Never leave your hoses dangling with any regulator installed especially when they are without pressure. Always secure the hoses to your jacket with hooks or straps, but leave sufficient freedom for movement. These hooks or straps should be fixed directly to the regulator or close to the hose fittings.
Never secure your hose in a manner which could constantly flex or bend in the same location(i.e. create a “hinge” effect). Continuous bending at the same pivot point will shorten the life of your hose.
Never over flex your hose Never fold the hose back over itself. If your hose is too long, you may loop it and secure it in place with a section of rubber tubing (such as the inner tubing of a bicycle tire). However the minimum bending radius must be at least 3.5 times the outer diameter of the hose.
Never allow the weight of your air tank to impact or rest on any part of your hose. To prevent personal injury or damage, install the low pressure hose ONLY into a low pressure outlet of the first stage regulator.
The Hose is designed to use air or nitrogen/oxygen mixtures containing up to 40% oxygen, use of gas mixtures with increased oxygen or the addition of other substances may cause corrosion, deterioration, premature aging or failure of the hose.
The Suggested time scale for considering replacement of your hoses under service is circa 5 years dives as also recommended by the majority of diving equipment manufactures and en standards.
Inspecting your hoses
As with all equipment, regular inspections for damage, wear and tear, is required to your Miflex hoses and although our hoses are more abrasion resistant and longer lasting than traditional rubber hoses, this does not mean that they cannot or will not wear – and as such should be inspected. Careful ise and inspection is critical to the safe use of your Miflex Diving Hose
Our tips for inspection are:
- Look for sign of significant scuffing on the outer layer – especially when used in cave diving type situations, where the hose has been rubbed against sharp or uneven surfaces
- If there are signs of loose threads, due to abrasion or cut marks from very sharp items such as knives, we recommend that if there are more than six loose threads together then this is a sensible time to replace your hose.
- Due to the design of the hose, this does not mean that at this time your hose may leak, but that it is showing signs of wear and could in the future cause you a problem. So we always recommend reducing this risk by replacing your hose.
- Look for signs of damage or excessive scale build up on the hose fittings and especially on the inflator hose, if movement is restricted, clean the hose as recommended, and if this has not improved, we again suggest that your hose is replaced.
At no time should you consider cutting your Miflex hose and reconnecting any type of fitting to the hose, or to try and reconnect the Miflex hose fittings, as this will reduce all safety in your Miflex hose.
All Miflex hoses are patented and manufactured with fittings specifically designed for purpose and then during the manufacturing process are individually tested to ensure each and every product is of the highest quality.
