Hello @EireDiver606, I will try my best to answer your questions.
1. Prices will vary based off the service you are providing and the resources and equipment you have to do an underwater job. How you charge will be based off your capability to complete the job you are being hired to do, area competition, insurance requirements, etc. I'm not sure anyone can give you a definitive answer on how much you should charge. Here in our lake, I charge $150 - $200 for a hull cleaning. This being said, I also own and operate a boat repair facility, approximately 600 feet above my Dive Center / Marina. For an additional $50, we do a complete Detail job on a vessel, including pulling it from the water and putting it back in. Most will choose this option over the in water hull cleaning. For search and recovery jobs, we have what we consider small salvage and large salvage. For small salvage, we sometimes will not run that through the company, and we let the individual diver set his own rates. Just as an example, I charge based off location, depth, accessibility, and time of the year. In short, typically I will charge $50 per hour for basic search and recovery (I should clarify SEARCH only, they pay even if I don't find the object they lost) directly off land and down to a depth of 20 feet. If I have to use a vessel (their boat), then I charge $100 per hour for the search and recovery (once again SEARCH only) down to a depth of 20 feet. And if I have to use one of my vessels, then the price goes to $200 per hour down to a depth of 20 feet. 20 feet is a key variable for me, anything deeper then my policy is, there must be 2 divers. Thus, the price doubles. For large salvage, sunken boats, cars in the water, and even plane crashes, we charge per foot. So a 24 foot boat would be a minimum of $150 per foot. The base price would be $3600 just to raise the boat, and then additional fees to keep it floating until it could be pulled from the water. Boat owners with insurance would typically only pay the deductible, and then we deal directly with the insurance company for full payment.
2. Hull cleaning for me is kept simple. I use a stiff brush and environmental safe soap. I buy mine through a distributor occasionally, but most of the time I will buy from Amazon. You will need to check your local laws to find out what you can legally put in the water way where you live. No matter how much training you have (WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ), searching for a lost item takes patience and practice. I have been very fortunate to have been doing this type of work for a very long time. I have found murder weapons buried in a foot of silt, 30 feet deep, without a medal detector, in zero visibility. I have found firearms 20 feet deep in a current around 6 knots, with zero visibility. I have found bodies 100 feet deep, with zero visibilty, with 2 knots current, approximately 100 yards in front of the dam that makes our lake. These are just a few examples, and they all have one thing in common. LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! I say this because, over the years I have done hundreds of searches with no success. It part of the business, and you have to learn to accept it. You also have to learn how to deal with people. Most will not want to pay you unless you recover their lost item. We have everyone sign a contract before we get wet. The contract states, they pay for the search, even if we are unable to locate their lost item.
3. Ideally, payment before you dive is great, but in the real world this doesn't always happen. For heavy salvage, we give the customer 30 days to pay. Then we will seek judicial help for said payment. We have done so many boat recoveries, where the person could not pay, and ended up signing the title of the vessel over to us for the payment. We turn around and fix the boat up and sell it to get our money back and then some. When you price a job, make sure you are clear in regards to what the customer is paying for. There are times I have explained that it was cheaper for the customer to just go buy another pair of sunglasses then to pay me to go look for theirs. This being said, (UNCLE BRYAN TECH TIP ALERT), make sure you get as much info about where the lost item is before you give a price. Because once you give a price, and if they decided they do not want to pay it, then, well you know where to go to find it anyways, and most states will have a law in place that protects you from having to give it back. In short a Finders Keepers law. Several times I have been in this situation, and even had people take me to court over it. The Judge has always backed me, stating the customer still has to pay for my services before I am required to give the item back. I would encourage you to speak with an attorney before you take my word for it though. Hopefully this answered your questions.
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