Double the price for air

I was having a chat with the owner of our LDS and she was telling me that she was going to be doubling the price for air fills to cover the lost income on equipment sales. How do you like that?

Seriously, what figures are you talking here? From $4 to $8? $5 to $10?

Unfortunately in a landlocked location like Utah, they can probably get away with it. And it's probably the difference between having and not having an LDS.

So how much weight does it take to sink in Great Salt Lake?


Look at the equipment capital costs, and the recurring costs for operating, maintenance, and air quality checks and maybe you won't feel so bad about paying a bit more for your air fills.

Charlie Allen

Everyone is voting with their wallet and buying from LP.

The consequence is that instead of SOME profit, the local dive shop is making NO profit on gear sales (and no sales either!) so now they're trying to shift it to gas, since they've already whored themselves on the training side.

That's all they have left.

Such is the price of market distortions.

If you dive a lot, especially if its Nitrox, a compressor may be in your future. The economics of it are such that if you do 100 dives a year, and so does your buddy, you have a gas cost of $2,000 if the tank of Nitrox is $10.

The "marginal cost" of that tank is approximately $1.50 (that is, the O2, filters and maintenance on the compressor. You can safely ignore the electricity - its about six cents. For air as opposed to Nitrox the marginal cost of the tank is about $0.75.)

So, if the fill station costs you $4,000 (about what it will cost) you are 470 Nitrox fills away from paying for it, at which point your continuing cost per fill is $1.50.

Oh, by the way, for those who say "oh your compressor will need to be completely rebuilt by then" that's a load of garbage. 500 tanks will be about 250 hours on a 3.5cfm FAD compressor, which is about one quarter of the way to the FIRST scheduled valve overhaul and only two oil changes in to scheduled maintenance!

Do the math, then talk to some friends, and give the shop the finger. I'm sure you can figure out which one is appropriate.

As soon as I have my station in and running, and the total costs for the hardware, I'm going to post a complete breakdown - I think it will astonish a LOT of people as to exactly how bad you're getting bent over the table by your LDS on your fills......

Don't even get me started on how badly you're getting raped if you're doing Trimix.

Yeah, you are paying a high markup on the air fills. It would be pretty cool to get your own compressor, but how big are one of those things? It could be kind of a pain in the butt having a huge compressor sitting in my garage. It would definitely be nice though. I know I had about 60-70 fills at my lds (not to mention fills at other shops around the state) and my girlfriend had at least the same...and the four or five other people in my dive group had at least that among them. If we all went in on one we'd probably see the savings within the first year.

Then again....I haven't paid for an air fill at my LDS for awhile They are good to me - most of the time I don't pay for fills or I can grab their rental al80's for free.

I'd be interested to see your breakdown once you get it done.

If you partial-pressure blend then even with a hyperfilter the hardware is under $4,000. That's for a 3.5cfm Alkin, Lawrence Factor hyperfilter, and the fill hardware to do transfilling of O2 bottles, all O2 clean and with digital gauges.

I'll post a picture of my setup when I get it finished - Stone posted one of his recently. He's continuous blending off a "stick", as opposed to PP blending, and not using the hyperfilter - the trade-offs are a matter of choices and risk assessment; he has a slightly higher FAD than I will, but not by much, and a bit more in total cost in his rig than I will have in mine.

I went the way I did because in the future I may want to put the compressor in a future boat, and the Oceanus is too big and requires too much startup current to make that a reasonable choice off most gensets.

I should be able to start the Alkin off an 8kw generator, which for me was a serious consideration. I won't put it on my current boat, but since a compressor should last almost forever in "personal" use, its a device I don't want to have to buy more than once.

SMKChef once bubbled...
...to cover the lost income on equipment sales.

Click to expand...

What's a lost income? She had a guaranteed flow of revenue?

Whats an air fill costing in Utah ?

As i mentioned when you were out in California SMK, the LDS hasnt charged me yet. I did mention to him friday that i'd be happy to pay for my fills, after all i paid thousands for gear so a few bucks for a fill isnt going to keep me from getting wet.

I also asked him what does an air fill cost anyway, his reply was 6 bucks. Which i think is a great deal for my double OMS 108s. And thats 6 bucks total, not each.

Andy

My al40 with 50% 02 is $9 bucks. How does that compare to around the country, i would like to hear from you all. I am of course only interested in those filling at the LDS.

Why not?

First of all, not everyone is buying from LP. I won't buy from them because their material is illegally imported and/or bought from distressed shops (which makes me wonder how well it was cared for). In addition, the LP staff doesn't have the slightest clue what they are talking about.

I called them once. I asked whether they stocked stage rigging kits. They asked "what is a stage". I explained. They replied "Oh, you mean a pony" You should clamp that to your tank. Yee Haaaaaah.

Trimixdiver, that's a good deal. My LDS provides free gas fills (air, Nitrox and O2 only) to pro staff, to people who spend considerable money in the shop and to their attorney. I qualify on all three counts. However, I believe that its about 10 dollars for a Nitrox fill, 5 dollars for air, per tank.