Is Your Dry Suit Leaking?

One of the most common service questions we receive is from customers concerned (understandably) about water inside their dry suit. There are a bunch of possible reasons this might be happening, ranging from the painfully obvious (the zippers aren’t closed all the way) to the less obvious (small holes from thorns) to even the occasional section of tape seam that needs to be pressed down. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with the suit – the moisture is just coming from sweat or through the latex gaskets. After all, it’s impossible to keep every drop of moisture out of a “dry suit” – even the best breathable laminates cannot exhale all of the moisture in a sealed suit that is often times covered in water. In any case, if you think water is getting inside your dry suit due to a malfunction, we want to do everything possible to fix it.

Of course, you can always send the suit back to us for testing. Our procedure for testing is quite thorough: we turn the suit inside out, seal off the neck and wrists and fill the suit with air. We then spray it with soapy water, and even the smallest leaks will produce bubbles, even leaks so small they most likely would never be noticed. It sounds counter intuitive, but spotting leaks can often be the best thing that can happen during this process. Most holes found like this are very, very easy to fix, and result in 100% customer satisfaction. More troubling is when we see nothing wrong, and we have to explain to the customer that there is something else causing moisture inside the suit. I can promise that if we see any leaks we will repair them, and if there is anything catastrophically wrong with the suit due to something like complete fabric failure we will replace the suit. We can make this promise because this rarely ever happens and if this wasn’t the case, we would be out of business. Nonetheless, because this does not resolve the problem, customers can sometimes feel frustrated by this answer.

One thing you can do yourself before you send a suit back to us to check for leaks is to let your suit dry completely, put it on, and then walk into a pool of water up to your shoulders while holding your hands out of the water. Nothing should get inside the suit. If it does, you will not only know beyond a doubt that it is leaking, but you’ll also most likely know exactly where. You can then send the suit back to us with any information you gathered during this test.

Of course if you don’t want to deal with this, you can also just send the suit back and we’ll take care of it for you.

In any event, if you want to send a garment back to us, simply fill out a support ticket. After we receive it, we will email you directions on how to proceed. If there is any visible damage, please attach pictures to the ticket, and be sure to mention any testing you did yourself.

Still have questions?

Reach out to our customer service team. We're here to help.