scrubber costs for YBOD

[James28]

Hi I was just woundering how much it costs to fill up on scrubber material everytime for the YBOD? Looking through various article (old ones) it seems to be about £3 a fill, which looks like the most expensive running cost (not servicing costs). Is it still the same price for the scrubber material, or has it come down in price?  Also if a few of you are clubbing together are you managing to reduce the costs (i.e. buy in bulk).

All things considered the pricing seems okay to super nitrox dive, but really comes into its own when squirting helium into your tanks. Not that I'm a tight fisted yorkshire man or anything!!  


James.

[Rob Evans]

It works out £7-8 quid a fill on the scrubber, a 20kg drum of Sofno knocks out at around £55.
Unfortunately it doesn't get much cheaper if you buy in bulk - an instructor told me if you bought 14+ drums you can get them for £50 a pop. Then there's the shipping, which is why I always preorder mine from APD for pickup at the dive show.....

There are other grades of absorbent (larger granules etc) which are cheaper, but cos I'm a blouse I'll stick with the recommended product.

PS you're absolutely right about the Helium.  To quote Chasey's big deep dive as an example, gas costs for the 102m dive (excluding bailout) would have been about £4 as a garage-fill, £40 at Dahab prices  

[Laurence]

<font color='#0000FF'>Hello there James, The cost of the scrubber fill is about £8. It costs £60 per 20kg tub adn you will get about 7-8 fills per tub.

3lt o2 will cost about £5 and 3lt air anything from £1.50 - £5.00. Sometimes the srubber fill is only enough for 1 dive, if your like me and like your bottom time then there may not be enough for the second dive, it should only be used for 3 hours.

Ive done over 2 hours and that was without bottom time, so if you like bottom time or have deco it may not be enough and then you have to bin it. £8.00 gone, dont push the scrubber, if you do it will kill you.

Then on top of that, besides the servicing which you would have to do on your OC anyway, there are the o2 cells about £150 per year minimum. And there life can be shortened if Helium is used.

So in comparison to twim set Nitrox diving it is more expensive but not by much, but the unit really comes into it's own when Helium is used. there are users who have recovered the cost of the unit in gas saving in less than 2 years. Thats a lot of gas saved.

However, dont look at the costs, look at the joy. It is a dream to dive. With that nice warm moist air and no noise its great i hate having to dive OC, yucky stuff.

Check out www.btinternet.com/~madmole/divemole.htm

I think the best Inspiration site on the web.

All the best

Laurence

[James28]

Cheers for the info, I suppose when you add up the other costs of diving, such as getting there, boat costs, etc a couple of extra pounds is nothing. I am spending the next year researching rebreathers to make sure it is the right path for me, also to see where my diving is going (I think I will be requiring helium at one point [although I do like getting narked &nbsp; ]), but it will proberbly be the case how much helium diving I will be doing.

Having said that if I have a go on a rebreather, I'll proberbly want one! &nbsp; &nbsp;It seems like that will only be a matter of time as I keep bumping into rebreather guys. Will be changing diving clubs this year, to one where people actually go diving &amp; don't moan at you for going deep (even though you're on a twinset, etc).

James.

[wreckweasel]

James,

Once your choice of mix stops being dictated by the cost of the helium, you tend to find that most people run their helium a lot shallower.

Its great for reducing the work of breathing and improving the old mental clarity (something has to offset the dogbolter from the night before )

[Sandman]

The only reason I am getting a YBOD is because of the cost of Helium. &nbsp;I did a 70m OC trimix dive last year and the gas alone cost me £70 and that was a garage fill, from my LDS it would have been nearer £100 which is taking the pi55 a bit for one dive. &nbsp;If I fill my twins with nitrox it would cost me £12 so for the majority of my diving it will work out about the same price per dive on OC or CCR and it will save me loads of cash when I start putting Helium through it.

Simon

[Rob Evans]

Oops - forgot to mention that. The reason I've got tons of O2 cells lying about is cos if you're sensible you change them every twelve months. And get a spare to be on the safe side.  So that's £200 down the swanny every year whatever you do.  
However the more dives you do, the less skewed the cost equation is. Truth be told though, you've got to get shitloads of dives in to justify the financial argument - you buy a CCR because it makes sense to you, not cos the numbers add up.
AFAIK Helium makes no difference whatsoever to O2 cell life but they don't like CO2. &nbsp;My Dil tin always has a medium/strong Heliair mix in it for the simple reason... why not? &nbsp; Though I do miss being narked at 35-40. &nbsp;

[Angleseyskipper]

we tried a few years ago to buy a pallet of sofna about 30 odd &nbsp;20KG drums direct from the factory between 8 of us but were give a polite F--k o-f and told to buy from AP as they were the &nbsp;sole agents for the stuff.
has anything changed as we never bothered to try again?

ps buying a YBOD just cos its cheap to dive on mix is a total bollocks reason for going on to CCR

[wreckweasel]

Really? interesting......

Everyone buys for a different reason, but if this chaps lead reason is cost, whats wrong with that?

[Sandman]

If you (Yellow butty box) had read another of my posts with regard to how much I have been paying for helium and how much I could soon be paying you would see why cost is my main reason. &nbsp;3p now and soon to be 5p a litre.

Who would pay £150 for gas to do one 70m dive when you could pay 10% of that? &nbsp;When I get my YBOD it will have paid for itself in less than 2 years.

Cheers

Simon &nbsp;