How much $ would you charge?

Barracuda2 · May 28, 2003

A guy in town called me yesterday about a lost pair of glasses in his pond. Evidently, one of his kids was being funny on Memorial Day and pushed him in fully dressed. His glasses fell off. I went over to look at the site. The pond is pretty much a mud hole - no viz. The glasses are in a rather small search area (about 20 sq. ft.) in about 8-10 ft. of water (so he says) Because of the small area, I will be very surprised if I don't find them. I estimate that I'll probably be in the water no more than half an hour. Here's what I told him: $25.00 to suite up; $35.00 to go under for the first hr. and $35.00 per hr. while in the water. I estimate that it will cost him about $55.00 to retreive this glasses. What do you divers charge for jobs like this?

Barracuda2

Diversauras · May 28, 2003

If you aren't doing this commercially then it is about what it will take to get you in the water, not about what other's would charge. If he thinks it's too sporty he'll tell you, but I wouldn't bet much that you'll find them, so make sure he knows that cost is incured even if the results are negative.

Barracuda2 · May 28, 2003

Diversauras once bubbled...
If you aren't doing this commercially then it is about what it will take to get you in the water, not about what other's would charge. If he thinks it's too sporty he'll tell you, but I wouldn't bet much that you'll find them, so make sure he knows that cost is incured even if the results are negative.

He understands that the minimum cost will be $55.00 finding them or not. He also indicated that it was a fair fee.

Barracuda2

Lead_carrier · May 28, 2003

It's according to what the water is like and if I really want to do the job. If it is decent water, the person is nice, and I want to do the job for them. $25 an hour. If they are jerks $60/hr with no guarantees. If they are real jerks and start wanting to renegotiate after I suit up. I undress and leave.. No questions asked.

scubasean · May 28, 2003

I've paid a diver to retrieve my car keys 15 ft. down in the harbor....murky water...2-3' vis (I had no gear with me except water skis....(I began to keep a mask and fins in the boat after that...)

Took him 15 min to suit up, go down, come back up, and hand me the keys...

I paid $50....and was glad to do it. How else would I get my keys? The boat was running, ready for me and my family to go out on the bay....and I sure as heck wasn't going to free dive without a mask in the harbor to get the keys....

Anyway, just charge him $50 flat rate and he'll be fine with it...

If you are doing this for money rather than fun, I think this job is too small to make decent money on .....

Just my .02...heh

Sean

Barracuda2 · May 28, 2003

scubasean once bubbled...
I've paid a diver to retrieve my car keys 15 ft. down in the harbor....murky water...2-3' vis (I had no gear with me except water skis....(I began to keep a mask and fins in the boat after that...)

Took him 15 min to suit up, go down, come back up, and hand me the keys...

I paid $50....and was glad to do it. How else would I get my keys? The boat was running, ready for me and my family to go out on the bay....and I sure as heck wasn't going to free dive without a mask in the harbor to get the keys....

Anyway, just charge him $50 flat rate and he'll be fine with it...

If you are doing this for money rather than fun, I think this job is too small to make decent money on .....

Just my .02...heh

Sean

Not doing it for money-just a paid favor. The guy isn't a friend, just an aquaintence. I'm on the local sheriff's search and recovery team and have a little bit of "siren chaser" in me so this kind of stuff is also fun. If I can't find his glasses, I'll probably just charge him for a tank fill---but don't tell.

Barracuda2

scubasean · May 28, 2003

touche....

After you are done with the five min. work, you can do the real dive with the free air.

BTW, as a person who has worn glasses most of my life, I'd easily pay someone $50 to get my glasses so I wouldn't have to pay $200 to get new ones...

I remember the day being at Lake Shasta here in Northern Cal when I was in an innertube and leaned back just a bit too far...and I went head first backwards into the water, losing my $300 prescription sunglasses in the process....It gave my wife and kids a great laugh for days, but I lost the glasses for good....LOL (nobody around with a mask, and <1ft vis)

--Enjoy!

Sean

Uncle Pug · May 28, 2003

Barracuda2 once bubbled...
Not doing it for money-just a paid favor. The guy isn't a friend, just an aquaintence.

Well if you were to do it as a friend perhaps you would find that it paid more than money.

But don't expect anything in return... including friendship... from the fellow you do the favor for... it will come back from somewhere else.

One day a fellow came into the fire station all distraught because he had just dumped his outboard motor into the lake. He gave us a song and dance about being a firefighter too (in a neighboring city) as though that would motivate us to action.

Actually were we happy just to provide the service (and wouldn't/couldn't take money for it anyway.) We didn't have a lift bag so we took a body bag with us and went scouring the lake bottom for his OB.

Sure enough we found it and using the body bag were able to get it back up and over to the dock where he promptly pulled it up, turned his back to us and never said thank you or anything else for that matter.

His wife rolled her eyes at him and said thank you to us... but even that didn't register with our *brother* firefighter.

cyklon_300 · May 28, 2003

...guy dropped his tool box in the drink...we were hauling our boat out and have a few sips of air left in the cylinders...jumped off the dock and swam it up for him.

Got paid 3 semi-warm Henry Weinhard beers for that one.

Helped a Canadian guy get some sail rigging untangled from the prop shaft of his boat...suited up at 5:15am and had a dive in 48F water BEFORE my coffee...got $150 Cdn for that piece of effort. I didn't name the price, he did.

My specs cost over $600, guess it'd be worth a few bucks to get em back...got some warm beer I could throw in too.

Barracuda2 · May 29, 2003

Uncle Pug once bubbled...

Well if you were to do it as a friend perhaps you would find that it paid more than money.

But don't expect anything in return... including friendship... from the fellow you do the favor for... it will come back from somewhere else.

One day a fellow came into the fire station all distraught because he had just dumped his outboard motor into the lake. He gave us a song and dance about being a firefighter too (in a neighboring city) as though that would motivate us to action.

Actually were we happy just to provide the service (and wouldn't/couldn't take money for it anyway.) We didn't have a lift bag so we took a body bag with us and went scouring the lake bottom for his OB.

Sure enough we found it and using the body bag were able to get it back up and over to the dock where he promptly pulled it up, turned his back to us and never said thank you or anything else for that matter.

His wife rolled her eyes at him and said thank you to us... but even that didn't register with our *brother* firefighter.

Sometimes local people will call the sheriff's dept. about lost items in our local rivers, ponds, and lakes. If they call the dept. we will recover just for the practice and charge no fee. We have recovered outboard motors, a snowmobile, fishing gear, a tool box, a diamond ring, and get this---a prosthetic breast for a lady who lost it while swimming; that was our most unusual recovery. This call about the glasses was personally to me, so I consider it unconnected with the sheriff's dept. I'm going to do this job tomorrow and I will post as to the success or not.

Barracuda2

How much $ would you charge?

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