Nitrox Pricing Question...

[poomero]

Start your own fill stations and charge however you want to. problem solved.

 

[iluvtheocean]

Start your own fill stations and charge however you want to. problem solved.

that's more headache than it's probably worth ---(licensing, taxes, etc) but

find out how many other divers in your area or on your team that are unhappy about the nitrox and collaborate on getting a compressor etc.. and do it yourselves. you've got a base cost per cu ft already @ 17 cents --- have everyone pay that -- and whatever "profit" is there is set aside for a dive trip --

you aren't actually selling it to anyone but they are paying for the cost which since it's a collaborative ownership plus a little extra for everyone to use for a group trip etc.

meaning it's equipment owned & operated by your dive club/team and everyone pays into it for what they use.. since you're up in alaska might make better since than down here -- where the answer would be go to the shop down the road.

some shops here charge nitrox by the CU FT, others by a flat rate...

 

[Brandon]

Well, you keep complaining while obviously nothing was being done, you could have picked up on the owners attitude. I have found out that nothing good has come from continually complaining to someone who doesn't want to hear.

As it turns out, there is value in your old man wisdom... I received an angry call from the owner on Wednesday and am now banned. Complain about a hot fill a few times, and he forgets about $10k in previous business and hundreds of hours of labor I donated to the shop and dive boat. Then again, he's also been pissed at me since I dove with another diver he hates back in February.

Oh well. Guess it fixes the problem, eh?

 

[luscioman]

If you spent 10k on fills you should do your own mixing. Then you can complain to yourself about light fills. Also another reason for lp 100s.

 

[Brandon]

If you spent 10k on fills you should do your own mixing. Then you can complain to yourself about light fills. Also another reason for lp 100s.

About $2500 in fills (nitrox, trimix and argon); the rest was training, boat charters, and various odds and ends. Primary gear I owned before I stepped foot in his shop (and I lived 800 miles away at the time).

 

[scubafanatic]

As it turns out, there is value in your old man wisdom... I received an angry call from the owner on Wednesday and am now banned. Complain about a hot fill a few times, and he forgets about $10k in previous business and hundreds of hours of labor I donated to the shop and dive boat. Then again, he's also been pissed at me since I dove with another diver he hates back in February.

Oh well. Guess it fixes the problem, eh?

I got banned from a LDS back in 2010, I was told I wasn't spending enough $ there, and during a pool session I accidentally told one of his customers I'd bought my Apollo Bio mask @ Scubatoys (a lady was having mask issues, I let her borrow mine for a pool dive, she really liked it) I told her she could buy it @ Scubatoys, LDS owner overheard me, ....OOPS ! he told me to stay the H*LL away from HIS customers! He didn't directly tell me to never come back, but the whole event/conversation left that a safe assumption, reinforced by him removing me from his e-mail list, as I never got a shop e-mail from him ever again.

He never had anything in stock, had the worst prices in town, his WWW site design dates from like the 1950's, and he was a very LONG drive....so it was certainly a non-critical loss for me.

 

[Dane@Scuba-Now]

That's completely understandable where you're coming from OP. I'd be aggravated as well. One thing to keep in mind though, is that 9/10 when a FSO is filling a tank, the tank will heat up and it will read at say 3400psi, then when it cools down it will be back to 3100. Whenever I'm filling tanks at the shop, I'll do an initial fill then wait a couple hours and check it again just to be on the safe side.

 

[redacted]

That's completely understandable where you're coming from OP. I'd be aggravated as well. One thing to keep in mind though, is that 9/10 when a FSO is filling a tank, the tank will heat up and it will read at say 3400psi, then when it cools down it will be back to 3100. Whenever I'm filling tanks at the shop, I'll do an initial fill then wait a couple hours and check it again just to be on the safe side.

Rather than going through that wait and reconnection, why not just check the surface temperature of the hot tank and fill accordingly? The fill limit is 3442 at 70 F. Nothing wrong with going to a bit higher pressure at 110 F so it cools to 3442 +/-.

 

[Brandon]

That's completely understandable where you're coming from OP. I'd be aggravated as well. One thing to keep in mind though, is that 9/10 when a FSO is filling a tank, the tank will heat up and it will read at say 3400psi, then when it cools down it will be back to 3100. Whenever I'm filling tanks at the shop, I'll do an initial fill then wait a couple hours and check it again just to be on the safe side.

Yup, quite familiar with adiabatic heating. Problem was this FSO was lazy and wouldn't go back and top up, but would still charge you as if it were 3400psi, insist that it was at 3400psi, and would refuse to provide you with a gauge so you could check yourself. If you used your own gauge, it was always "inaccurate" and you'd be charged for the CF of a 3400PSI fill anyway.

For those who understand the physics and process behind the whole thing, it was intensely frustrating. Still... probably should have picked this battle a little better.

Rather than going through that wait and reconnection, why not just check the surface temperature of the hot tank and fill accordingly? The fill limit is 3442 at 70 F. Nothing wrong with going to a bit higher pressure at 110 F so it cools to 3442 +/-.

Or at least just charge me for the CF of a 3100 PSI fill. That's all we wanted.

Of course, you can always estimate the pressure change at about 6.5 PSI per degree. 110F - 70F should take a 3400PSI tank down to about 3100 PSI.