I think it is not a bad idea to figure in the up front cost of preparing your bailouts, if you are doing deco or deep diving.
This might even include the cylinder, valve, rigging, regs, labeling, and initial gas fills.
It is required and dedicated equipment, except for NDL diving, where you just sling up any old standard air/nitrox cylinder that cycles right back into OC service.
Did you get credit back for unused bailout gas? (Often not?)
Actual CCR consumption is like ~100 litres of helium per dive for deep (~80-100m) dives, ~US$15 @ 15 cents per litre?
Figuring ~10 to 20 litres of diluent consumed per ATM of depth.
Beautifully written post and I couldn’t agree more. It’s really too bad
@nadwidny can’t comprehend these concepts.
These posts and questions have been discussed for decades, and the short answer for those seeking to justify the purchase of a rebreather is you can’t lol. But that being said, IF you are doing open circuit technical diving AND using helium, rebreathers will ultimately end up “paying” for themselves.
First off, to answer @bubblemonkey2’s question: I paid one flat rate of 550$ for 6.5 days of unlimited trimix diving. I used one 80 of 15/55, one 80 of 32, and a 40 of 100%. My onboard was 15/55 for normoxic dives and 10/65 for hypoxic dives. I did not need to bailout, and returned the cylinders full. We did about 24 hours of diving with max depths around 230 and 305 respectively.
In places like cayman, you’ll pay 500$ for just the bailout on a 300’ dive and you will not receive a refund when its returned.
Contrary to
@nadwidny ’s short sighted comments about his swinging banana, taking into consideration whether you are using a helium rich onboard, accompanied by a helium rich bailout will drastically effect your out of pocket. If you are not doing helium rich trimix dives it’s much harder to “offset” cost.
A week’s worth of Normoxic and hypoxic dives on open circuit will cost you thousands more than those same dives on ccr…
Trust me, buy the rebreather….best decision of my diving career.