drager scba's

[tilton4]

I Am Looking For Departments That Use Drager Scba's Our Used To For There Pros And Cons Of This Scba's

[mjteague]

Used to use drager's. We are switching to scott. Too many failures. Enough said.

[mcaldwell]

Do a search on it, and there are tons of threads discussing this at length.

Suffice it to say that there are a huge amount of departments using, and completely happy with Draegar (including us), but like all other peices of equipment, you must conduct your own head to head comparisons to determine which peice bets meets your needs and budget.

When you are dealing with the major SCBA manufacturers (i.e. Draegar, Scott, MSA, etc.), it is like Ford vs Chevy vs. Dodge etc...

It's all just brand loyalty and personal preference.

[smokeNphyer]

I like the PAS alarm on the Drager's. You definitly can't miss that wonderful noise. :o)

It's like comparing Dodge and Chevy, Nike and Reebok, Blonde and Brunette...

I'd contact MSA, SCOTT, and DRAGER and see if you can get a pack from the vendor to test out for a few weeks.

Have all members test them out and take a vote.

[LPFD53]

we had many issues with shoulder & waist straps pulling through the metal parts that let the straps release, the rubber headnets breaking, cloth headnets stretching out tremendously, and the cylinders are hard enough to change in broad daylight, let alone on a downed FF in a IDLH environment. But like others said, I'm sure every manufacturer has their issues.

[redtrucks]

Our dept replaced our older 25-MSA SCBA with 25 - PSS100 Dragers about a year ago. We did have some controversy from a small part of our membership when we purchased these SCBA because they were "different" than the MSA. We did evaluate MSA, Scott, and Drager but in the end Drager scored the highest, MSA was a close second and Scott ranked the lowest.Everyone in our vol dept was allowed to evaluate and state their reason for liking or disliking any of the SCBA.

We have been very happy with Drager packs. Have not had any problems besides replacing batteries. One of the concerns some people had with the Dragers was that the Drager had a whistle instead of a bell for a low air alarm and the Centinal PASS was not as loud as the other two. We did compare MSA and Dragers low air alarm and PASS and they were both 100 decibals. It was not an issue after that.

There have been five vol dept in our area that all used MSA and in the last two years they have switched to Drager. I have spoke to all of these departments and everyone of them have been satisfied with the Drager. We have a very dependable dealer selling and servicing these SCBA. All of the SCBA that we evaulated have positives and negatives. Buy a pack that works the best for your department.

[Weruj1]

where is Samson ?>>>>>>>

[mcaldwell]

where is Samson ?>>>>>>>

SSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! :eek:

I feared to mention his name, lest he appear and start "That Thread" all over again. :D

[CALFFBOU]

Low bid junk. You get what you pay for. Get the Scotts, be happy and done with it.

When it comes down to it, the words below in blue say it all...
http://www.pixhost.com/pixb/boukca/61735117905_0_alb.jpg
AND WHAT ARE THESE FOUR BOYS WEARING? SCOTTS!

[CALFFBOU]

Bro- You like many others are going to support whatever your FD gives you. More offen than not, its LOW BID. Just like RainMan said about K-Mart, low bid sucks. Sorry to be so blunt, but I would hate seeing these little FDs buying the low bid crap to save a dime and blow dollars later in repairs.

Look at FDNY. I am gonna guess they might see more fire than your current company. And guess what, they beat those Scotts into the ground and they keep working. HELLO! Its nice to get your moneys worth and more from a product.

Dont not go cheap. You will end up paying more in the end. Get the best, work with the best and then you will be happy. SCOTT is the way, hands down. Done. Period.

[toddman]

We have been using Dragers for almost two years now. We are very happy with them. Two cons about them that I have are batteries and the connector to change the tank. Batteries are something that all SCBA users comment about, no matter the brand of pack. The tank connecting system on the Dragers takes a bit of getting used to, but we knew that before we purchased them. We demoed Scott, MSA, ISI and Drager. Get them in house and play with them, that's the key.

You will find many on this site that a very PRO Scott. That's great! they are comfortable with their PPE, we are comfortable with our PPE and we use Drager.

One comment about the low bid thing...Scott was low bid when we purchased. Drager was the highest. The members voted and got what they wanted. Know that doesn't always work that way in larger areas though.

Take Care!

[toddman]

FDNY use Scott, as do many other larger departments. They will likely use Scott well into the future. The interoperability issues that would be created by having different manufactures packs within the same organization would be significant. I also doubt that they will budget to replace all of their packs anytime soon.

[coldfront]

Dont not go cheap. You will end up paying more in the end. Get the best, work with the best and then you will be happy. SCOTT is the way, hands down. Done. Period.

We research the market several years ago and changed from scott to drager safety.This was not a low bid issue for us.The scott rep apparenty did not worry about a dozen or so packs for a small rural department.Drager did!The packs have been great.Drager hosted a tech repair class free which allow two firefighters to troubleshoot and do minor repairs to the units.We have just been awared a grant which will purchase more packs and upgrade the older units to the current standards.The best is in the eyes of the end user.We are happy!hands down.Done! Period!

[redtrucks]

According to our sales rep, one thing that Drager did to prolong battery life was to switch their HUD seaching for a signal from every two seconds too every four seconds. Supposed to double our battery life. I think that MSA is trying the same thing??

Toddman, I believe that we have the same sales rep. They have been real good to us.

When we bid out our SCBA, MSA was the cheapest (by a big margin), then Scott, Drager was the highest. The sales rep that sells Scott in our area also belongs to a vol dept. His dept also purchased Drager. Again, buy what works the best for YOUR deptartment.

[Bones42]

More offen than not, its LOW BID. Just like RainMan said about K-Mart, low bid sucks. That's funny. Around here, Scott is the Low Bid so should I ignore them? :rolleyes:

[MemphisE34a]

We have been using them for several years. I must say that I was very skeptical at first, but we have actually had very few problems that I know of. I have never had a problem with a pack that I have been using.

I wish ours were configured differently, but that is a department issue, not a Draeger one. I have used MSA, Scott, Draeger, and ISI. Really they were all okay with me. The object is air, right? They all gave me air. They all offer advantages and disadvantages. Its all what you get used to and want to pay for. The biggest pro to Scott is the large open face piece when your off air, after that there all the same!

[pkfd7505]

Bro- You like many others are going to support whatever your FD gives you. More offen than not, its LOW BID. Just like RainMan said about K-Mart, low bid sucks. Sorry to be so blunt, but I would hate seeing these little FDs buying the low bid crap to save a dime and blow dollars later in repairs.

Look at FDNY. I am gonna guess they might see more fire than your current company. And guess what, they beat those Scotts into the ground and they keep working. HELLO! Its nice to get your moneys worth and more from a product.

Dont not go cheap. You will end up paying more in the end. Get the best, work with the best and then you will be happy. SCOTT is the way, hands down. Done. Period.

I kind of agree with the don't go with cheapest idea.

We just converted from Scott to MSA by ordering 16 MSA FireHawks. I've worn both and can live with either one of them, though I find the MSA to be my personal favorite. During the bid process we accepted bids from Scott MSA and Drager reps. By far the MSA rep had far more knowledge then either of the other 2. Our Scott rep barely seemed to know what he was holding and every time we asked a question his answer was "I'm not sure". Prior to his arrival we had done very indepth research and our Asst Chief knew the Scott inside and out, too bad the rep didn't take the time to do the same thing.

When it came to looking at Drager, we never really took them very serious. When one of the first things your sales rep says is "Buy 3 get one free!" it scares me about the quality of the product. He didn't mention how good his product was or how safe, he just pushed the fact that we they were really really cheap. Close to half of the cost of the MSA as a matter of fact.

Regardless of who you go with remember one thing, make those sales reps work for the money! Remind them that their air packs are not the only ones on the market. We made our sales reps rebid several times, by the time it was over they were pratically fighting to get our buisiness. In the end we got a really sweet deal, including a free pump for our rescue tools and free spare tanks.

[redtrucks]

MSA and Scott both brought in factory reps when they came to our department to give their sales pitch. Drager was only represented by the local dealer. We had a list of 25 questions that we were going to ask all three companies. The local dealers that were selling and servicing MSA and Scott would not answer any of the 25 questions that they were asked, they refered all of the questions to their factory rep. We have had a good working relationship with both of these reps for twenty plus years, they were either shy or just didn't know enough about the product that they were trying to sell. The local Drager rep knew his product inside and out. Not one of the three said anything bad about the others product, but the MSA factory rep was constantly comparing MSA to Drager. The product knowledge of the local rep was also one of the determining factor of our department purchasing Drager.

[Yankee750]

If you do a search you find a thread that I started last fall. We just bought 18 new Scott NXG2's. We were wearing ISI with the air switch mask. We brought in Scott, MSA, ISI, Draeger and Survivair. The Draeger was by far the most comfortable pack that we tried. The downside was that we had radio interference problems with their wireless HUD. Our local rep for Draeger (who is a frienf of mine) could not get an answer from Draeger as to why. They claim it was a fluke and it had never happened before. It interfered with our low band channel 2 which is 46.42. If we did not have the interference, we would have looked much more seriously at them. I know they are real popular outside the states so best of luck in whichever direction you go. Also, as far as the low bidder goes, Scott was low bidder for us by about $750 per pack!!

Good luck

[ladder2121]

The bottle falls out of the pack to easy, they suck, they have more fancy lights and alarms than a damn space ship, they suck, they are ugly, they suck, they are cheaply built, they suck, any more questions, they suck

[Yankee750]

The bottle falls out of the pack to easy, they suck, they have more fancy lights and alarms than a damn space ship, they suck, they are ugly, they suck, they are cheaply built, they suck, any more questions, they suck

What do you use? We beat the living hell out of them and they had no problems. I have departments within15 minutes of me that haev them and are reporting no problems. One of those departments runs over 1000 plus calls a year. We run 200. I'm not too worried. Scott also stands behind their product and has a local rep to take care of issues should they arise. As far as your comment that they 'suck' grow up and provide specifics.

[Yankee750]

Which department are you with?
Why, do you think you know me??? Well, I have my reasons for my screen name. I will say that I am in NY between Rochester and Syracuse and that we don't have red trucks. If you do know me, you can probably figure it out.

RSG
750 Clear

[Yankee750]

deleted duplicate

[SamsonFCDES]

where is Samson ?>>>>>>>

Here I am!!! :D

Draeger is great! Buy 2 of them for each of your firefighters!

LOL.

I do think Draeger is one of the better SCBAs. Here is my scorecard once again...

1 Draeger PSS100 with Sentinal
2 Scott NXG2
3 Scott AP50
4 IS Digital Viking
5 MSA Firehawk with the high end gauges
6 Global Secure
7 Survivair
8 Interspiro
9 North

Or something like that. We do now have some NxG2 in the county. The only thing I really dont like about them is the quck change bottle as it screws up swapping bottles between the 2 departments.

[Weruj1]

I knew this was callin ya !

[mjk1171]

Worked for two depts. One used Drager one used Scott. Scott wins by a lot. Maint low and user friendly.

[Bones42]

Just like RainMan said about K-Mart, low bid sucks.

Its nice to get your moneys worth and more from a product.
anyone else notice that once Scott was named as the low bid, Bou disappeared? :cool:

[mjteague]

We've had multiple problems with our Drager's including first stage regulator failures and PASS failures. We found at one time the 25% of our PASS devices would go into prealarm mode then reset without being moved. What this means is that if you went down in a fire the PASS would never activate. Byebye firefighter.

When we were looking for new SCBA's for our Hazmat team, the team members wouldn't even consider using Drager. We bought MSA for the hazmat team.

We just made a region-wide purchase of new SCBA's(1500+ units). Scott was chosen by the committee. Nobody would even look at drager.

We are large department with running 70,000 calls a year of which 12,000 are fire calls. Very few depts our size use drager. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can only think of two others Memphis and Baltimore. Most of the post by depts that like the dragers are small dept with low response numbers. This could mean something.

One last thing. Scott and MSA are American companies. Drager and ISI are foriegn owned.

[CALFFBOU]

anyone else notice that once Scott was named as the low bid, Bou disappeared? :cool:


Right here bro. First time I have heard that Scott was low bid. But I will take your word for it.

[mcaldwell]

We are large department with running 70,000 calls a year of which 12,000 are fire calls. Very few depts our size use drager. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can only think of two others Memphis and Baltimore.

Calgary Alberta uses Draeger quite happily too (1 million+ pop). I am sure there are others up here, but they are the only one I'm 100% certain about.

Remember, Draegar IS the world's largest SBCA manufacturer, and they didn't get that way without selling a product that was at least on-par with the rest.

As I said earlier. Demo, compare, and decide. :)

[Bones42]

Right here bro. First time I have heard that Scott was low bid. But I will take your word for it. Actually, I was surprised by it myself. Last time I went out for a quantity purchase (3 or 4 years ago) they were at least $1000 higher than my Survivairs. Don't know what brought the Scott's down so low now at the price quote I have is about $1500 less than it was before. Maybe they are dropping the price on AP50's due to the NXG2's? :confused:

[toddman]

Have always heard that Drager is the "cold weather" pack. That was something that turned us to them. Just was talking with a neighboring dept that has NXG2s and they have been having issues with that snap in connector in cold weather.

Personally, when we were looking at new packs, had we purchased Scotts I would have wanted the AP50 over the NXG2.