what is a fair price for a diver to charge

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My last profession (I hope) was insurance. I started with zero experience in 2012 selling life and cancer insurance. I did pretty good making about 100k/year working one day a week. But I was VERY good at it. The company changed hands and owed me (actually still owes me) quite a bit of money.

I moved into property and casualty (homes, auto, boats, etc) in 2016 and made about 100k/yr with a mostly awesome company working about 20 hours per week. When my son died, my new’ish boss yelled at me for missing my quota for the first time ever. I told him to go phuck himself and got fired.

I started a competing company a week later and all but put him out of business. For Christmas, I sent him a card saying, “Merry Christmas, oh and thank you for making me a millionaire in under 18 months”

Anyone with half a brain could do what I’ve done. This month, my paycheck was $62k

I still teach cave/ccr diving a little. I’m working on a salvage contract for a helicopter that crashed in a lake today. So I’m still in the industry some. But insurance is the way to go. Even a goober could make a $100k per year once they got into the right company. Which is way easier and faster than finding the right diving job.

So.. DM me more.. can this be done on the side of my current job?
 
I am in no way consider myself a pro...... but I do "work" sometimes for prop swaps, zinc's etc.... for some of the yachts in my marina. I don't have a license or advertise. They just see me and my boat and see that I'm a diver and ask. Most of these folks with their 40 -60 ft + yachts don't really even know the value of money so I just say that I'll do it for less than a haul-out and get it done...

I also have folks on some of my boat forums that need to have their offshore mooring ball connections inspected. You'd be amazed at what some old rich geezers have their mooring balls attached to..... Code says the it needs to be a permitted "auger" system to lessen any impact on the environment.... But many that I see are just a big block car or truck engine block with a chain run through....

I just sent you a DM.
 
So.. DM me more.. can this be done on the side of my current job?
Life Insurance Agent can easily be done on the side. Not the others.
 
You should be asking this question in one of the many hat diver groups on Facebook. Much, MUCH more active than ScubaBoard for this kind of thing.
Cheers. I had a look but what is hat diver? I keep finding pictures of hats...
 
Current inland rates are from 15-35/hr typically. Somewhere in the middle for average. Union and prevailing wage stuff is different. Tougher stuff to come by.

Kids out of dive school probably around 15-20 for a probatory period might make low 20's after a bit. Guys with experience can typically jump around and find jobs from 25-45+ an hour, with a bit of effort. Also staying busy is the biggest challenge and many guys jump around quite a lot.

I make the higher end of typical but I'm not s typical case either. The best advice I have is; lineman or HVAC. ✌️
 
For simple intake grate replacement I charge $250 per body of water but generally loop a hot tub and pool into a single event for facilities. Two pools with hot tubs on site - $500.

If there’s more work than remove/replace it goes to $300, and if there’s work to be done we switch to $60 an hour straight time, but I’ll likely be surface supplied, running air tools and doing “actual work”
 
Current inland rates are from 15-35/hr typically. Somewhere in the middle for average. Union and prevailing wage stuff is different. Tougher stuff to come by.

Kids out of dive school probably around 15-20 for a probatory period might make low 20's after a bit. Guys with experience can typically jump around and find jobs from 25-45+ an hour, with a bit of effort. Also staying busy is the biggest challenge and many guys jump around quite a lot.

I make the higher end of typical but I'm not s typical case either. The best advice I have is; lineman or HVAC. ✌️
Those rates seem awfully low to me. They may be accurate, but it strikes me as very-not-worth it. We're dealing with something that is skilled, hazardous, equipment/material costs, and inconsistent work. If someone is being paid 30-40hrs/week consistently, then $25 might barely scrape by, but working $18hr at a grocery store would be a better deal.

For example, I've worked as both an artist and software-dev. Mostly full time, but my base freelance rates were usually calculated 2x to 3x my equivalent salary-to-hourly-rate. To use some round-numbers, lets say I'm making $100k/year, that's about $50/hr (100k/2000hrs). If it's a month-long job, I might charge $100/hr, but for a week-long job, it would be around $150/hr.

That said, the scuba-industry is setup so that scuba-instructors are making "pennies" on the job, but that's probably a lot more enjoyable than most commercial work.
 
Yeah but the customers don't think so:)

There is to much downtime in between jobs...

I might as well keep turning wrenches 10hr a day. Make a ton more money,
I like doing little jobs occasionally, more for the challenge than anything else.
Up here its illegal to take money for work.
Without proper industry rules, and hoops.
 
Yeah but the customers don't think so:)

There is to much downtime in between jobs...

I might as well keep turning wrenches 10hr a day. Make a ton more money,
I like doing little jobs occasionally, more for the challenge than anything else.
Up here its illegal to take money for work.
Without proper industry rules, and hoops.
The market is defined by both (a) what people are willing to do at a certain price and (b) what people are willing to pay.

I'm reminded of some scuba-tanks I was looking at on CraigsList. We agreed to a price, and before we met up the seller changed their mind and wanted more. Technically, the new price was still a fair deal, but (aside from changing the deal), it wasn't really worth it for me personally. The scuba-tanks were not the exact size/type/age I wanted, but at the original was worth any minor inconvenience.

Like you mentioned; a lot of us are priced out, simply because we have a day-job that pays more with consistent hours and lower risks, even if prices were higher than quoted. Where my above comment comes in, is that by my calculations, those quoted rates don't even compete with grocery-store or fast-food rates.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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