So how much does an air fill really cost?

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

DiveRightinScuba, so what do you charge for a fill and are you making, loosing, breaking even on a fill?

 

[Dive Right In Scuba]

We charge $5....and not only do you get a fill, but you get to BS with me while it gets filled (we do slow 20-30min fills that stay at 3300psi)

We have only been open 6 months so any money we make is still paying off startup costs, as expected. We are not making money on anything we do.....yet! But to say I lose money doing a fill would be crazy.

If you do one fill a month, yes you will lose money.......if you do alot of fills, your not losing anything....it all depends on how many fills you do. Maybe your LDS doesnt do alot of fills....We dont really care, fills are just a bonus for our customers. We dont do it to make tons of money, its to bring them into the store and keep diving! That being said though, if I charged $5 for a fill and it cost me $7 to do.......then theres a problem with what Im doing....

 

[spectrum]

I am just curiuos what the real deal is. I keep hearing everytime I offer to give money to an LDS at thier posted prices how they are doing me a favor and loosing money when I give them money. I am all for them making a profit. I certainly do in my business. Just wondering what the real cost is.

There is no one answer Leah.

I had a chat with a LDS a few yars ago. He has a very significant installation.Siginificant banks, quenching for steels all in nice space. His comment was that if he were starting up today he could never affort such an installation and volume being what it is would probably not even go into the business. His facillity and major equipment were acquired and paid for during the Seahunt/Cousteau inspred explosion in diving. Today he says 1/2 of his clientel is folks like me (50 YO) getting to the sport on the backside of rearing their families. My point is his busness model does not include the cost of acquisition. Operation and maintenance are his out of pocket expenses and he'll deal with replacement if it's ever needed in his lifetime. I heard went up to $5 or $6 this year.

We have another shop with a bodacious compressor installation that was paid for when we had bonanza in sea urchin harvesting. They were filling cylinders on an overnight basis and had all they could to to keep up with demand. Again it was not the sport divers that covered the cost of acquisition. They still do a good volume on commercial fillls of several dozen at a time.

I'm sure that these sorts of stories are repeated elsewhere.

Lets talk labor... I have one shop that has somebody incapable of doing a good fill. Hooks them up and lets them whistle. I'm in and out in less than 10 minutes with 4 HP 80s they are poor fils so obviously I avoid this. Across town they will do slow :15 fill. If I leave the cylinder I can count on it having been topped off the next morning with a spot on fill. The manhour content of these fill is very different. Some even have DM candidates working the shop for free.

Even electricity rates vary considerably across the nation and world.

Some maintenance work is time bassed and some is on hours of use. The volume of business will govern which of these limit triggers the expense and the number of fills it is amortized across.

As a business woman I'm sure you can appreciate that there are many ways to model cost. Loaded vs unloaded hours, SG&A and so forth. I really wonder how many shops have ever sat down and done a comprehensive analysis. I'd like to see it too!

Meanwhile don't let anyone put you on a guilt trip, they just want to be appreciated. The LDS in many areas is walking a fine line and there can be a lot of stress that needs venting. That or if they are truly loosing money overall they will be gone soon.

Pete

 

[pir8]

I think it depend a lot on your location. First shop I worked for didn't do high volume fills so didn't really make money on them if you consider overhead involved with running a shop. She wasn't near the ocean and made her money on Masks, fins and snorkels. Now I teach for a shop on the Jersey coast and we do a lot of fills. He makes money on his fills besides the other stuff.

 

[james croft]

I get a lot of free air as a member of a PSD team, but own a compressor. Don't use my compressor now. Not worth it to me to pay for filters, etc. Air cards are cheaper than running the compressor. I will keep my compressor just in case I go into mixing my own gases in the future. I suspect I may save some coin then. I don't think anyone will get rich selling air.

 

[Packhorse]

I pay $3 nz ($2us) per fill. I cant see the LDS making any money from this but it does bring people thru the door.
Think of it as advertising. You never make a proffit advertising, its always a cost but you will get extra sales that wouldnt have happened with out it. Its the same with air.
If I had my own compressor then I wouldnt bother with the LDS and just buy every thing I need on line.

 

[nice-diver]

a now out of business shop told me a decade ago that he has to replace $150 filters every month if he does one fill or a million. out here is $5 and $10.

 

[pgdive]

A lot of it has to do with the reliability of the compressor. A $2,000+ repair, which is going to happen eventually, eats up a lot of the money that is coming in for fills. Also you have the cost of a quarterly air test. Then again we don’t charge for fills, so I can’t really complain.

Paul

 

[underboats]

Leah, We fill our own tanks and it ends up costing about $3 per tank when accounting for the compressor and good filters. Not having to drive to the LDS every few days easily justifies compressor and maintenance. Air fill's are not very profitable but it's what gets you in the shop. If you look at the markup on most of the other equipment you will laugh when they grip about not making money on air. Just my 2 cents

 

[123Scuba.com]

My facility has an ANDI approved gas blending system... We do Air, Nitrox, Tri-Mix etc... We are required to perform quartely gas analysis among other things which make our maintenance costs higher than most. That said, it is not a "lost leader" for our facility, our prices are inline with most other shops (not the cheapest not the most expensive) and we offer discount fill cards that save everybody time and money. It is not our policy to "complain" to our customers, nor would we ever want to make them feel "we are doing them a favor" by taking their money...