Do I want a compressor?

[2airishuman]

Three compressors have surfaced on Craigslist, locally, in the last few weeks. I'm tempted.

Checking my logs, I average about 50 local fills a year. At present I've been dealing with that by having many cylinders and taking them to the LDS when I accumulate around a dozen empties. I'm doing my own VIPs and cylinder maintenance, some of which I sub out directly to a hydro shop.

I have two local shops that I like, that do good fills for a typical price of $5-$6. The main problem is that there's so much handling involved to get the cylinders to and from the LDS.

I could use some help thinking this through and figuring out whether it's a good idea.

 

[tbone1004]

do you dive nitrox at all?
you are obviously mechanically inclined so that's a non-issue
You're looking at $250 call it in fills a year, plus drive time, hassle, etc. for the LDS.

Will you save money? no, not going to happen
Will you dive more? sounds like probably not, but maybe
Is the convenience worth the cost?

I can tell you that I purchased a compressor earlier this year and I haven't used it. I haven't used it because I got free access to an SCBA compressor at my local fire department otherwise I would have used it a good bit by now. I bought it solely for convenience of fills from my garage vs. trekking around to the dive shops.

 

[The Chairman]

It's a question a number of us ask. I liveBottles[*] smack dab in the center of Cave Country, and while I love most of the dive ops in the area, I'll have to drive 20/30 minutes to get to one of my friends. With 10.82 acres, I would love to put an outbuilding close to the road and start something like a compressor co-op. The goal would be convenience: not saving money. There are a number of factors to consider:

• Initial Cost
  • Compressor
  • Bottles
  • Land
  • Building
  • Whips & Lines
  • Electrical
• Recurring Costs
  • Filters/oil
  • Maintenance
  • Electricity
• Impact on neighbors
• Liability
• County Codes

What did I miss?

 

[hunter991]

I would weigh the aggravation factor of drive time and fill cost versus the aggravation of compressor maintenance. If you are averaging around $300 in fills a year, how long would $300 a year take to pay for a compressor? Now add in upkeep cost such as oil changes, filter changes, and wear of that compressor. It adds up pretty quickly. Also most small compressors are pretty slow to fill tanks and don't have auto drains so require you to check on them every 15 minutes or so. You could add storage cylinders so you could fill from storage when you need it, but that adds costs as well. I had my own compressor before I opened my store, but it was a good bit of aggravation to keep it running properly, but it was diesel then and the diesel caused most of the problems for me.

B

 

[northernone]

Something I've come to appreciate is I LIKE having someone else spent their time doing fills. It's not a particularly enjoyable activity for me and can be time consuming, particularly in bulk.

My local fire department (former coworkers) let's me use their compressor, and it's 3 minutes down the road. While I'm grateful for the shared resource(I keep it maintained), rather than doing a dozen fills, I'd like be underwater or working on a homebuild while I would pay someone else a stipend for that convenience.

That said, I've been 11 hours away from a fill and would have dearly loved a compressor.

Not sure what my distance / cost / time factor would be to push me over the edge to buying a compressor.

... Now a booster is another story!

Regards,
Cameron

 

[The Chairman]

Now a booster is another story!

Indeed!

 

[guruboy]

Yes. Buy it. Dive now. Regret later.

 

[OkByMe]

I have about $6000.00 and 50 hours of labor into my compressor including all the extra filtering, auto controls and the Oxygen generator bank. There is no way I can get a price point to justify it, and I knew that going in. But I do have the convenience of being able to store my tanks at 1000psi or dump them for inspection and I KNOW what went into them. The compressor is portable enough to take to the condo or an RV park and power it. It easily fits into the back of my Expedition and can be run form inside the truck. I mix my own gas (air, NITROX, TRIMIX) at my convenience with my quality control. Sometimes I fill the occasional paintball tank and I do rent out a 4500psi stage cylinder to a paintball group that wants to play a farmers field. That pays for the electricity, maybe. You can find some info here:

New Toy - Airetex 45 w/ CB Nitrox

Advice needed on fill station configuration

 

[hunter991]

Renting out a 4500 to a paintball field is a great idea!

 

[2airishuman]

do you dive nitrox at all?

Not locally. There isn't much to see between 60 and 110 feet aside from a handful of wrecks in Lake Superior.