LDS Closures

[redacted]

Anyone, besides owners and employees, had to make major changes to their diving routines due to closure of your LDS?

My area in central TX was supported by 5 LDSs in its hayday about 10 years ago. We are now down to 2 and seem to be doing just fine.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Where I used to live we ended up down to one LDS then it changed owners. The new owners adopted extremely limited weekend hours along with changes in fill policies that made fills very difficult to get if you did not live near enough to the shop to get them by 5:00pm on weekdays and did not want to spend Saturday waiting for a fill at the shop.

Because of the combination of that business with other businesses they operated, they were apparently not real ammenable to expanded weekend and evening hours to accommodate their customers. If they had competition they'd be at risk of losing marketshare but since is no competition, they are just losing local divers as they dive less and less frequently.

I ended up buying my own compressor.

 

[SparticleBrane]

My area in central TX was supported by 5 LDSs in its hayday about 10 years ago. We are now down to 2 and seem to be doing just fine.

Sounds like those other 3 weren't needed. Capitalism at its finest...

 

[MikeFerrara]

I don't need a dive shop for much and if I hadn't have sold my compressor, I wouldn't ever need one. We don't have many shops. There's one about 60 miles away and the others are closer to 100 miles. That's not a problem for most diving because all the dive sites have fill stations.

the problem is mix and the closest dive shop had a split between the owners. I haven't followed up but I fear the wrong guy left. I don't know what chance there would be of the current owner topping off mixes ect.

Obviously the long term plan is to replace the compressor.

 

[Nick_W]

Sounds like those other 2 weren't needed. Capitalism at its finest...

5-2=2

America's education system at its finest.

 

[SparticleBrane]

5-2=2

America's education system at its finest.

2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2...

That's what I get for typing the post while talking to someone else and not watching what I'm typing...:11:

 

[Garrobo]

After thinking about this for about 10 seconds I decided that an LDS (50 miles away) isn't that important to me anymore. I buy all my diving related articles from internet suppliers or on Ebay and get my fills at the local firehouse. And, since I am not blind, I can visually inspect my own tanks (or let one of the firemen who is certified to do so) and I can service/rebuild and test my regs. And I don't use a mix, just straight air. So, so long LDS. No problemo.

 

[Guba]

Not being blind works for those visual inspections, but let me know how you perform those hydrostatic tests, okay?

As to the thread, the only LDS for about 60 miles in any direction closed, so yes, it has impacted my diving somewhat. (And that LDS was in a town of about 100,000 no less. One would think they'd be able to make it as the "only game in town", but alas...)

 

[MikeFerrara]

Not being blind works for those visual inspections, but let me know how you perform those hydrostatic tests, okay?

Not many shops do hydrostatic testing. They send the tanks out for that. You can take them to the same place they do, cut out the middleman and save yourself a few bucks.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Not being blind works for those visual inspections, but let me know how you perform those hydrostatic tests, okay?

As to the thread, the only LDS for about 60 miles in any direction closed, so yes, it has impacted my diving somewhat. (And that LDS was in a town of about 100,000 no less. One would think they'd be able to make it as the "only game in town", but alas...)

Most dive shops I know of don't do hydros -- they pay the hydro facility to do the test, then jack up the price 2.5x for the customer...