Changed my mind about using a hot water suit for cold water dives after talking to a guy in Gulfport

I always thought hot water suits were just for the North Sea guys or real deep stuff. Then I met this diver in Gulfport last month who does bridge inspections in 45 degree water for 6 hours at a time. He said he used to shiver through it with a drysuit but switched to a hot water setup and now he can actually feel his fingers after 4 hours. That sold me. I'm looking at a used Haskel pump now to try it out on a 60 foot pier job I got coming up in February. Has anyone here run a hot water suit off a surface supplied setup that wasn't crazy expensive?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire_fisher411mo ago

I did almost the same thing last winter on a bridge job in Maine. Found a used Haskel pump on eBay for under 500 bucks and rigged it up with my old Kirby Morgan hat. Works great honestly, just make sure you get the right hose or it'll freeze up on you between dives.

ivanlewis1mo ago

Cracked up reading this because I've been there, @claire_fisher41. My first rig was a Frankensteined mess of harbor freight parts and duct tape. Works fine until the moment it doesn't, right? That freeze up thing is no joke either. I learned that the hard way dropping a hundred bucks on hose that was supposed to be rated for it but nope. Your setup sounds way smarter than my early attempts. I probably earned my extra gray hairs from worrying about that pump giving out mid-dive.