Curious about your home filling setups

[ScubaJewel]

We have a 16 cfm worthington compressor in our garage with a 8 bottle bank system, We blend Nitrox with a stick and I must say the its all about convienence. It feels great not being tied to a dive shops schedule...

 

[captain]

I bought the compressor I am still using in 1968 for $630 new. It cost me about $50 year to operate. So $630 + $50 x 39yr =$2505 + convience. Yea I'd say it was worth it.

 

[pescador775]

There is a Capitano and a couple bottles of oxygen and helium in my dive locker. Also, there are two home made portable compressors. I bought the Capitano from Mako in 1974 but its still low mileage. I used to be a heavy user of compressed air but now, mostly, I freedive and spearfish, and occasionally take friends on wreck trips and the like. We dive NITROX and TRIMIX.

 

[oxyhacker]

The smart ones do, the dumb ones just say they do.

I would question whether shops really lose money on air fills. Personally I think that's an urban myth.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Losing money on pumping gas is not an urban myth. I know cuz I did it. LOL I lost money on the whole shop...lots of money.

 

[Hoosier]

Losing money on pumping gas is not an urban myth. I know cuz I did it. LOL I lost money on the whole shop...lots of money.

Mike.

We know that you were a former shop owner. But, how?

Do you think which one was your case?

1, Most LDS might put too much initial investment up front on their filling station even though they don't need that much.
2. Most LDS might not have enough customers to break their investment.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I should have explained that a little more. As an inland dive shop a long way from water and with all the dive sites within a couple of hundred miles selling gas, we just didn't sell any air. Almost 100% of the air we pumped was used by students in the pool. Most equipment manufacturers require that you be a full service dive shop to get a dealership and that means having gas for sale.

The fill station was NOTHING other than a cost of equipment sales and teaching. From an accounting point of view, fill station capitol and up-keep are a burden on equipment and class sales. Follow? Well, the teaching was already a loss and really just another burden on equipment sales. That left equipment sales to pay everything and provide a profit. Well it didn't.

 

[rjack321]

True, most dive shops lose money overall.

I have seen a number of shops, all owned by men BTW, who built these gigantic kick butt fill stations and couldn't possibly pay back the investment.

Someone on scuba forum .com had a good post a while back (2005?) on whether air is really a loss leader at shops or not. I'll try and find it.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike.

We know that you were a former shop owner. But, how?

Do you think which one was your case?

1, Most LDS might put too much initial investment up front on their filling station even though you don't need that much.
2. Most LDS might not have enough customers to break their investment.

We crossed posts and I think my last post pretty well explains it but the bottom line is there were no air sales. The compressor was just a cost associated with teaching and getting equipment dealerships.

I don't think I had too much compressor. I had 5K in the compressor itself and maybe another 3K in banks, hyperfiter, hose, whips and stuff like that. Call it 8K. that was a Bauer Capitano (I think) which only pumped about 5 cfm...I really did need the banks. It was set up nice with auto drains BIG filters auto shutoff and so on but it wasn't much of a compressor.

The problem was just low volume and lots of overhead. No one in their right mind would devote capitol and retail space to a fill station with nothing to fill. LOL

 

[MikeFerrara]

Now Bill R. down in Florida or Mike W. over at Gilboa probably make a few bucks pumping gas, but they PUMP GAS.