OP
How much should an airfill be?
- Thread starter triplecove
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Wow! Thank you Dolphin Scuba! I haven't seen anyone come close to the $2.00 a fill for a 20 fill card except the one annual card for $100.00 and unlimited fills.
flots am
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Unlikely, but people who own their own compressor seldom do it because it's cheaper.
flots.
knfmn
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mac.calder
Registered
I guess I am one of the lucky ones - I pay AU$4 a tank (12L steel) with a fill card, my fills are always nice and full - I am yet to get a fill that is less than 230bar at the site.
$6 for banked EANx32. Bit rusty on the custom mixes but IIRC - $14 for a custom nitrox mix if it is membrane (up to 40%) - $5 blending fee and 6c/L for O2 in addition to the $4 topup if I want partial pressure blended (>40% EANx or in a bit of a hurry and want the mix that day or by the next morning)
$6 for banked EANx32. Bit rusty on the custom mixes but IIRC - $14 for a custom nitrox mix if it is membrane (up to 40%) - $5 blending fee and 6c/L for O2 in addition to the $4 topup if I want partial pressure blended (>40% EANx or in a bit of a hurry and want the mix that day or by the next morning)
Say what?
First off flots am was citing $4.00 as energy alone, never mind capital and all of the direct labor and overhead that goes into each fill. $4 for energy sounds high but I didn't run the numbers.
Second, what you are meaning to say is 100% mark-up or a doubling of money. 100% profit would be collecting money for something that cost the shop absolutely nothing.
There is no free lunch unless you want to snorkel.
Pete
knfmn
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clownfishsydney
Contributor
My wife and I have had our own compressor now for over 11 years. I have kept very accurate records since then, so the prices I will quote below are 100% accurate. The reason we purchased it were:
We purchased a Bauer Junior II electric. Cost then was just under AUS$5,200 (much cheaper now). I also purchased some extra things like a second whip etc. Note that today the Australian dollar is a bit stronger than the US dollar, so costs below will be about 4% higher in US terms.
As of today we have done 3,084 fills. Note that the fills have averaged about 18 minutes a fill as my wife and I are very good on our air consumption. Most people would require at least 22 to 25 minutes a fill.
The capital cost per fill is: AUS$1.68
Recurrent cost is: AUS$0.44
Total cost is: AUS$2.12
The electricity cost has averaged AUS$0.05 a fill since new, but today it is AUS$0.22 (nowhere near $4 as someone stated above - Australian electricity costs are far higher than US costs).
The recurrent cost includes oil, spares/repairs and filter costs (repackable filter).
The capital cost is based on 100% write off of the compressor. Of course, if I decided to sell it today, I would probably get about AUS$2,000 at a minimum, so the real costs is even lower than above.
A large compressor should even be cheaper to run than my compressor. I figure we have saved AUS$14,765 based on AUS$7 a fill.
We also do Nitrox fills. Oxygen costs me roughly 2 cents a litre. A 32% fill costs an average of AUS$3.20 in oxygen, so the total cost of a Nitrox fill is about AUS$5.32. Again, this is based on filling from about 100 bar to 220 bar in a 12 litre (100 cf) tank. Oxygen would cost even cheaper if I used a larger cylinder, but they are too hard to transport for me.
It is not a chore to fill tanks. As soon as we get home, I put the tanks on and then we wash gear. Once every 15 minutes I need to blow off the moisture (no need to do more often, in fact it is damaging to the compressor if you do). I track this using my watch. As I fill 2 tanks at once, there is no chance of it over filling for at least 30 minutes. After washing gear and boat, the tanks are normally almost filled. Simple. Meanwhile, someone who has gone to a dive shop will probably not even be home yet.
Anyway, as you can see, owning our own compressor has been a very good investment. I hope this helps people.
- poor fills (new Australian standard that was limiting fills to 200 bar (3000 psi)
- having to wait at the shop while tanks were being filled
- high cost of fills
- even higher fill costs outside Sydney when diving with our boat
- having to put up with dive shop's BS about how terrible business is etc etc
We purchased a Bauer Junior II electric. Cost then was just under AUS$5,200 (much cheaper now). I also purchased some extra things like a second whip etc. Note that today the Australian dollar is a bit stronger than the US dollar, so costs below will be about 4% higher in US terms.
As of today we have done 3,084 fills. Note that the fills have averaged about 18 minutes a fill as my wife and I are very good on our air consumption. Most people would require at least 22 to 25 minutes a fill.
The capital cost per fill is: AUS$1.68
Recurrent cost is: AUS$0.44
Total cost is: AUS$2.12
The electricity cost has averaged AUS$0.05 a fill since new, but today it is AUS$0.22 (nowhere near $4 as someone stated above - Australian electricity costs are far higher than US costs).
The recurrent cost includes oil, spares/repairs and filter costs (repackable filter).
The capital cost is based on 100% write off of the compressor. Of course, if I decided to sell it today, I would probably get about AUS$2,000 at a minimum, so the real costs is even lower than above.
A large compressor should even be cheaper to run than my compressor. I figure we have saved AUS$14,765 based on AUS$7 a fill.
We also do Nitrox fills. Oxygen costs me roughly 2 cents a litre. A 32% fill costs an average of AUS$3.20 in oxygen, so the total cost of a Nitrox fill is about AUS$5.32. Again, this is based on filling from about 100 bar to 220 bar in a 12 litre (100 cf) tank. Oxygen would cost even cheaper if I used a larger cylinder, but they are too hard to transport for me.
It is not a chore to fill tanks. As soon as we get home, I put the tanks on and then we wash gear. Once every 15 minutes I need to blow off the moisture (no need to do more often, in fact it is damaging to the compressor if you do). I track this using my watch. As I fill 2 tanks at once, there is no chance of it over filling for at least 30 minutes. After washing gear and boat, the tanks are normally almost filled. Simple. Meanwhile, someone who has gone to a dive shop will probably not even be home yet.
Anyway, as you can see, owning our own compressor has been a very good investment. I hope this helps people.
OP
triplecove
Contributor
Thank you clownfish this is the kind of info I was looking for. It looks like you are saving about $1500 per year. I have a 3rd diver coming up soon (my daughter is now showing an interest) and if the 3 of us dive as much as we did last year, 45 dives each, that would be $1181.25 @8.75 per fill. A quick look @scuba.com shows an entry level compressor $3200US Buy Max Air 35 scuba compressor MA-35-E1-110-SCUBA (3000psi) with reviews at scuba.com It looks like with filters and maint it would only take 3 years to re coup my investment. Not to mention we would probably dive more with the convenience of filling tanks as they are used. Again, I don't begrudge the LDS from making a profit but maybe a better policy would be to keep air fills low to drive foot traffic to their store.
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