Quote: (Originally Posted by
Eyeflow)
Hi,
What are the annual cost of rebreather diving?
Scrubber cost for about 100 1 hours dives to 30m?
Cells?
Other cost? Typical cost of significant size.
Thx in advance /Mats
I don't dare to keep track of costs per dive...
But I'm pretty sure the cost for 100 1 hours dives to 30m per year is the lowest for regular OC nitrox dives with oxygen deco, especially if unit cost is included and you already have a decent OC kit or buy a good second hand OC-kit. That is if you live in a civilized area with competitive gas suppliers and forget about the logistics of filling all those OC-cylinders.
Sure you might get the Rebreather to turn out cheaper if you: Build you own unit
and get it right at the first attempt/get a really cheap second hand one/spread the investment in that new and expensive Rebreather over 10 years. In addition to all the above you must resist to buy any new cool Rebreather-toys, not have any costly failures and get a good price on the sorb (like from the German Spherasorb dealer ;-))
My feeling is that sorb (scrubber) costs are comparable or even higher than OC gas costs for nitrox dives. In addition to this you usually have a higher maintenance cost for a Rebreather so moneywise it usually does not make sense to dive a Rebreather with nitrox...
At least that is my opinion. My point of reference is perhaps wrong. My O2 and air filling cost are way lower that the average in Sweden and about half the sorb I have or have used was given to me (the other half was bought at ~4€/kg)
Unless frequent trimxdives are part of the game Rebreather are simply not cost effective IMHO.
So if you need motivation to buy a unit I think its much better to think in terms of interest, easier logistics, possible time savings and the very different experience (silence, warmth, ect) it brings during the dive.