Air fill cost/price

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by ebbtide
local fire ,departments . all the firemen /women are more than glad to lend a hand in filling your tanks . and the setup they have for a compressor with all the air filters and sutch , must cost a pretty pennie .

I dove FD air for ten years and only had one potential problem when our compressor started picking up CO from a nearby house fire...

That said... I have wondered about the standards for air used at 1ATM as oppossed to standards from breathing air used at greater pressures....

 

[dc4bs]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug
Hi Ed,
We have a few shops around here that got into nitrox and banked 40 but I really don't think they thought it through...

Every tank has to be blended up or down (unless someone wants 40) and that adds a man power load not to mention the opportunity for Murphy to get into the act.

Not only that, but it requires customers to wait for tanks to be filled (most of these shops require overnight!) and that is unacceptable in my book.

If a shop decides to offer say EAN32 and EAN36 and bank just those two then they can fill customers tanks while they wait and if the bank is low then just top them off with the membrane fed compressor.

For those deco bottles that need to be filled say to 50 use PP blending with a EAN36 top.

What if a customer comes in and wants EAN33.5 for that *special dive*??? Send him down the road! Or educate him ($$$).

Really it would serve not only the dive shops interests but the customers as well to teach *standard mixes* instead of *optimal mixes* don't you think???

BTW I only bank EAN32 and that is what I dive... I'm not a shop but if I were that is still how simple I would keep it. If I end up banking anything else it will probably be 30/30 Tx

Ed?

Well, up untill the new compressor came in, there was only air and a 100% mix bottle.

When the decision was made on what to bank, 30% was used as that is what most divers in our area request. Most of the wrecks that the charter boats go to are just a bit on the deep side for 32% and the captains prefer that noone aboard have over 30% as they are then more limited to the shallower dive sites.

The non boat dives generaly have no reason to use anything other than air as you have to go out quite a ways to get deep enough for nitrox to have any reason for use.

As for banking 40%, that's not set in stone or anything, just the current working idea we're playing around with.

Thanks for your input. It's given me more to think about and discus with my LDS owner (probably next weekend).

As for TriMix, the shop has not ever offered it and so my buddy and I (we're looking into it) have been waiting for the dust to settle and the shop to get comfortable with the new nitrox systems before we bring it up.

I do have access to a shop where we can get Trimix fills (where we would go for TriMix courses if/when we decide to do that), but that is still in the future.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Craig... I'm glad you answer to Ed!

That's what happens when you are working on several emails at the same time

BTW... when we do shore dives we always use EAN32....

 

[Rick Murchison]

Originally posted by ebbtide
well Rick ,
here in Nova Scotia it only costs 5$ a tank , now here we dont have as meny LDS's so we have to bug the local fire ,departments . all the firemen /women are more than glad to lend a hand in filling your tanks . and the setup they have for a compressor with all the air filters and sutch , must cost a pretty pennie .

Ain't taxpayer subsidies wonderful?
Rick

 

[sharpenu]

Just be careful with air from fire stations. They are only required to have grade D air and SCUBA requires grade E

 

[voodoogas_diver]

Up here we have two seasons, Winter and construction. During construction air fills at the LDS are $ 5.00 CDN or about $3.00 US per cylinder. This means that I have my twin PST 104's filled for the equivalent of $ 6.00 US. During winter, because divers really drop off up here they drop it to $ 2.00 CDN air fills.

I'm all for supporting your LDS, you can take your e-commerce dive shops and buy there gear, without the touchy feely hands on approach, but are you as comfortable with it. Might be fine for accessories but not life support gear......

 

[ScubaDad1968]

I agree with you 100% Uncle Pug.
The LDS closest to me hardly sells equipment anymore. But this was their best winter in 10 years. They have class after class and sell air.
Plus they have quite a large used equipment dept. which is also advertised online.

If I were an LDS I would Capitalize on what online cannot do and then do exactly what they do. I would:
1.) Promote Classes and Training
2.) Sell tank fills (as long as you compete locally, this brings them into the store)
3.) I would set myself up with every brand I could and have my store set up with touch screen show rooms. (NO it's not that expensive, I do this for a living) it is much less expensive than investing in $250K of stock.
4.) All the big online dealers only stock the few sku's they do large volumes of. Many distributors or even manufacturers will dropship to the LDS or even the customer.
Taking this approach the LDS could sell cheaper then an online store bar the volume pricing any online store is doing. which is rare and limited to a few sku's or brands.

If done right a good LDS in a good location is not a risk from eCommerce.
You simply do what they can't
and do what they do better.

How can this be done? the LDS cost of doing business is essentially MUCH MUCH lower than a reputable online dealer. But so is the potential revenue (local vs National)
but a local LDS can advertise Nationally online just the same.

 

[nimoh]

you are missing two things.

1. each of your suppliers is going to require minimum orders, and you will still end up with $250K of stock.

2. this thread is more than 10 years old, and many posters might have different opinions by now.

 

[bumcikaz]

where is that lds with $4 nitrox fills in maryland?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

where is that lds with $4 nitrox fills in maryland?

Somewhere back in 2002.