Who uses what brand of SCBA?

When I started out years ago,we still had a couple of demand model MSA packs.We had Survivair Sigmas for the past 14 years and just upgraded last week to Sperian Warriors.Just curious as to who uses what brands and likes and dislikes of any of them.

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Permalink Reply by Kent Calhoun on September 7, 2010 at 6:23pm

We just relpaced our Scott's with new Drager's.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Secker on September 7, 2010 at 8:17pm

Always been a Scott fan, but we currently carry MSA'a on all our rigs.

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Permalink Reply by Cariba on September 7, 2010 at 8:20pm

We use ISI's but I'm not sure what model exactly. I like them other than the PASS gets set off really easily.

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Permalink Reply by Mark C. Oswald on September 7, 2010 at 9:07pm

There's a fix for that... Send me a message and I'll help you out!

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Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on September 7, 2010 at 11:03pm

At both of my FD's, we use Scott. We love them for ease of operation and not alot of hang up hazards because they are pretty simple(not alot of bells and whistles).

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Permalink Reply by GARY HANSON on September 7, 2010 at 11:08pm

We have the ISI Vikings. Our all volunteer department had a mixture of every kind from Scott, SurviveAir, MSA and some "off brand unknowns", in 12 stations over 15 years. When the district got on the ball we went district wide with these ISIs and all composite bottles. I think everyone is real happy with the new "all alike" stuff.

There is an issue with batteries though, but it isn't from going down (dead) it is from the Dura Cell Coppertop batteries leaking and ruining several of the circuit boards of the built in packs and contacts where the pack contacts the service buss posts. We have several stations that are not fully staffed and if the batts had been serviced or checked more frequently there would probably have less of a problem Now our drill is to change out all batteries every four months. The complete packs carried in the hard cases on our service trucks and tenders aren't the problem ones. It is the packs that hang valve-down in the SCBA compartments in the engines. We don't have any packs in enclosed cab seating. All are stowed clipped in the side compartments.
I wanted our DC to slam DuraCell with the big bill to replace about 15 or more battery packs that were corroded beyond recognition. He said it was somewhat our fault for failing to check more frequently. I still think the battery mfg should be responsible.

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Permalink Reply by John Dobson on September 7, 2010 at 11:10pm

ISI Viking, Are bottles will not work with other packs 'threads are shorter on the valve'. But we can use other brands of bottles. I believe there is a standard that states all bottles should interchange with any pack if they are 2216 PSI rating. If not there should be. The ISI bottles will not work with are airbags and we can not get a adapter for it. So we have old bottles on the truck for the airbags.
Are packs have radio interface that is nice to have, voice amplification, easy to clean mask, intergraded pass alarm. We can also plug one pack into another with a built in airline to buddy breath for an emergency. The hook up is a little hard to work with gloves though.
The bottle thing is a unforgivable by my standards.
We also have aluminum bottles that are around 18 pounds it gets heavy after a little while. Hopeing for a grant for composite bottles to knock off about 10 pounds.

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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on September 7, 2010 at 11:24pm

We just went to Scott, we were using Survive-Air. We have used ISI, MSA also. They are all OK. i relly like the new Scott's, they breath real easy.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Meadows on September 7, 2010 at 11:53pm

Bell County VFD uses Dragers with the 45 minute composite bottles and I like them. Last time I was in the fire service at my old dept. we had Survivairs with the 30 minute steel bottles. Talk about a difference in weight!

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Permalink Reply by Bill Carlisle on September 8, 2010 at 7:47am

Our dept. has the Scott 2.2, as does our neighboring depts that we run mutual aid with , but in the past i have used the Msa and Scott and must say they both do the job well

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Permalink Reply by Roger Waters on September 8, 2010 at 9:32am

Scott here too. We used MSA for years but switched to Scott 7 years ago. I like the pack but we all have alot of frustration with getting a good mask seal. MSA has a better mask.