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Picked a hot water suit over a drysuit for a 40 foot river job in Pittsburgh and I'm second guessing myself
Got hired for a 3 week inspection gig on a bridge pier in the Monongahela River back in March and had to choose between renting a hot water suit or dropping $2,800 on a used vulcanized drysuit. I went with the hot water suit since the rental was only $400 for the whole job and the water was sitting at 38 degrees, but now the company is asking me back for a fall contract and I'm wondering if I should've just bought the drysuit from the start. Any of you run hot water setups on shorter river jobs or do you just bite the bullet and own your own suit?
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val_williams1h ago
I used to be all about renting gear for short jobs, figured why drop thousands when I could rent for a few hundred. Then I did a 6 week pipeline gig in the Ohio River and the rental hot water unit crapped out on day 9, and I was stuck in 40 degree water with a busted suit while the tender scrambled to find a replacement. Cost me two days of pay and probably some brain cells. After that I bought my own vulcanized suit and never looked back. The rental math makes sense on paper but when gear fails on a job you're the one freezing. Depending on how many weeks you keep getting booked, that suit pays for itself faster than you think.
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