Nitrox servicing a reg???

[Lead_carrier]

This question is mainly for the service techs and LDS people here. Before we start, I have been a Scuba Pro, AquaLung, Atomic and a couple other lines service tech for around 12 years now. I recently quit a LDS because I told the owner he was screwing his customers and I would not have my name associated with that. He uses factory kits on the Scuba Pro regs and when he takes in a different brand reg, he claims he uses Viton o'rings for everything.(that's a different tale in itself) The reason I quit was that he charges one price for reg service, one price for Nitrox service and a different price for O2 service, and was counseling me on the fact that I refused to do it that way. The disagreement that set me off was he was justifying the extra nitrox service charge because he claims that he's using Christolube and he is stating that it's ok to use it for EANx. He got kinda upset when I told him that in order to service a SP reg to factory standards he had to use Christolube anyway. I guess my question is, do you know any other shops that do this? I've only heard of one and everyone within 100 miles knows it's story. If I'm wrong then I own him an apology.

 

[scubasam1212]

When we service regs we only use christolube. The only part we use environmental silicone on is the handle for yoke regulators (it holds up better in the salt water and cristolube is expensive to use on that part). There should be no resason to charge extra for the reasons stated above. The only place I would charge more would be when a customer had a regulator that wasnt serviced with an oxygen safe lubricant and we need to cleen all of the silicone off and use christolube. Just like cleaning a tank whe making it nitrox safe.

Unfortunetly I have seen stores that will only use silicone to cut costs and still charge more for labor.

 

[Superlyte27]

Good on you for not wanting to join the crowd willing to rip people off. Every reg we rebuild is to O2 compatible use. We charge 15 bucks per stage parts, and 15 bucks per stage labor. I don't care what you use it for, it'll be clean enough for everything.

 

[beaverdivers]

We use O2 compatible lube to service all our Scubapro regs.

We charge a normal fee for Nitrox compatible regs for <40%.

For O2 clean service we charge more due to the fact that we use Nitrox conversion kits that are compatible for >40% up to 100% O2. We must perform an addtional cleaning process for all components.