Should I continue to rent tanks?

[Stu S.]

Check eBay for what used tanks sell for.

Take care of your tank. If you want to sell out, you can recover most of your purchase cost. My buddy sold his HP-120's for more than he paid for them. I sold an LP-95 for almost what I paid for it.

So take Compudude's above numbers and add a sellout value at the end. That makes tank ownership a bargain.

 

[superchoriflai]

The vast majority of my dives to date have been at the end of a 7-hour drive to Mexico which I take every couple of months. I will dive some of local lakes through the winter when the viz gets better and I'll take the 5-hour trip to SoCal when time permits (once a month maybe).

I am a consummate gear junkie and have been looking at tanks but am wondering if the money wouldn't be better spent just diving. If any of you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Thanks

 

[sea nmf]

I want to point out that even if you own your tanks, you are still going to the shop for fills before and after dives, so you still incur the travel costs.

What I like about it it though, is that you don't have a deadline to return the tanks or risk paying another day's rent. Unless you are going to dive the next day or more that day, you can decide when to fill them. That is a big plus for me.

 

[ReefHound]

I want to point out that even if you own your tanks, you are still going to the shop for fills before and after dives, so you still incur the travel costs.

What I like about it it though, is that you don't have a deadline to return the tanks or risk paying another day's rent. Unless you are going to dive the next day or more that day, you can decide when to fill them. That is a big plus for me.

No, you are going to the shop before OR after (1 trip per fill) whereas renting you are going before AND after (2 trips per rental).

And you're right, the time convenience is another big factor. There have been a few times where I had to work late on the Monday after a weekend and held the rental tanks another day. My shop has always waived the extra day fee but they could have insisted on it and some shops might not be so accomodating.

 

[ReefHound]

The vast majority of my dives to date have been at the end of a 7-hour drive to Mexico which I take every couple of months. I will dive some of local lakes through the winter when the viz gets better and I'll take the 5-hour trip to SoCal when time permits (once a month maybe).

I am a consummate gear junkie and have been looking at tanks but am wondering if the money wouldn't be better spent just diving. If any of you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Thanks

Even if it's not feasible to transport tanks across the border, I'd still buy my own tanks. Going to SoCal once per month means at least 12 dives per year on a tank, and if you add in occasional weekends local then you should get 20 dives per year.

If it's feasible to transport tanks across the border, then it's a no-brainer.

 

[CompuDude]

Even if it's not feasible to transport tanks across the border, I'd still buy my own tanks. Going to SoCal once per month means at least 12 dives per year on a tank, and if you add in occasional weekends local then you should get 20 dives per year.

If it's feasible to transport tanks across the border, then it's a no-brainer.

We drive down to dive near Ensenada all the time. Never had a problem getting across the border with tanks. We've had inspectors look pretty carefully over the piles of gear before, but they've never had an issue with the tanks. I think they're pretty used to seeing them go back and forth.

 

[CompuDude]

Check eBay for what used tanks sell for.

Take care of your tank. If you want to sell out, you can recover most of your purchase cost. My buddy sold his HP-120's for more than he paid for them. I sold an LP-95 for almost what I paid for it.

So take Compudude's above numbers and add a sellout value at the end. That makes tank ownership a bargain.

Very true. That said, I've had tanks fail hydro before, so I always try to calculate worst case scenarios (i.e., tank fails the next hydro, tho you should still get nearly 5 years out of any tank, as long as it is purchased with a fresh hydro) just in case something horrid happens. (Catastrophic tank accident, unnoticed water down the valve causes non-fixable rusting inside, etc.). Even should that happen, however, I think the benefits of owning outweigh the possibility of some costs (vs. renting).

 

[ReefHound]

And a benefit not mentioned yet (that I've seen) is the comfort and security of knowing where your tanks have been filled and how they have been handled. While you'd like to think that rental is OK inside you have no idea how many times it has been emptied completely or filled at a questionable facility by other renters. I've also seen stories where divers didn't check the tank at time of rental and discovered too late the o-ring was bad or missing.

 

[superchoriflai]

Getting tanks across the border is no problem - it's not something border officials are concerned about. Perhaps the next question is steel or aluminum. I originally thought that aluminum 80s would be the best bet but I've read several threads in which people are touting the virtues of steel. I'm interested in some more opinion on this and why.

 

[CompuDude]

Getting tanks across the border is no problem - it's not something border officials are concerned about. Perhaps the next question is steel or aluminum. I originally thought that aluminum 80s would be the best bet but I've read several threads in which people are touting the virtues of steel. I'm interested in some more opinion on this and why.

In cold water, the steel tanks, which are less buoyant than aluminum tanks (a generalization), allow you to remove a good amount of weight from your belt, yet many of the tanks themselves weigh about the same as an Al. tank. Less weight to lug around.

Steel tanks outright win from a capacity standpoint... the biggest aluminum tanks commonly used are 100cf, and frankly those are rare. The common Al.80 only holds 77.4cf of gas, oddly enough. Steel tanks commonly hold considerably more... 80, 95, 100, 120 and 130cf are all popular sizes.

In cold water, the advantages of steel tanks are real and clear. In warmer water, steel tanks can end up causing a diver who doesn't need much weight to begin with to be overweighted, so the aluminums actually have an advantage, despite their relatively small capacity. In addition, when doubled up with a thin wetsuit, the extremely heavy weight of steel tanks would require supplemental lift, in case the primary wing failed. Aluminum doubles are helpful in avoiding this as well.

And finally, with both tanks cared for properly, a steel tank will outlast an aluminum tank... Al. tanks occasionally (but rarely) last as long as 20 years. There are many steel tanks first put into service in the 1940s (and earlier) which are still going strong.