zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: As long as you perform the recommended yearly
: checkup, your gaskets will be checked and
: replaced. I do not believe chlorine will
: degrade the rubber that quickly, but I'm not
: a chemist....

I had to laugh at your last sentence because I am a polymer chemist. I know Omega recommends replacing the rubber gaskets more frequently if the watch is often exposed to chlorine or sea/salt water. I don't know the specific type of rubber Omega uses in their gaskets, but chlorine's effect would be based on many factors like chlorine concentration, duration of exposure, temperature extremes, etc. I would suspect that Omega has already done what any good company would do and have tested their gaskets by immersing them in chlorine and salt water solutions to evaluate the effects (often this is done by the supplier of the gaskets and the raw data is passed on to the end user - i.e. Omega). If there were any real danger of damaging the watch from swimming too often, I'm sure we'd hear about it directly from Omega. They don't want any hassles from people with damaged watches.