Learn best practices for starting and running a float center:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Something in the world of floating have you stumped?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Show Highlights

The Question: Will the home tank market and its low prices affect the commercial float industry negatively?

Our Answer: We don’t think so! In fact, home tanks increase the visibility of our industry.

Tune in to this short Daily Solutions Podcast, or read the text below if you’re at work and you need it to make it look like you’re doing important stuff.

Show Resources

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: So today’s question is, How does the invention of low cost in home float tanks affect the viability of starting and running a float tank center?

Ashkahn: I think it’s probably not going to have much of an impact, or maybe a positive impact if anything.

Graham: Yeah, that’s my feeling very much as well. I don’t think that you’re losing a lot of your most regular customers or anything, even to having a float tank in home.

Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean like, if you have a float tank center by this point, you know how hard it is to have a float tank setup somewhere. It’s crazy. The amount of salt, the amount of maintenance, all that sort of stuff. Hopefully that stuff will get better over time, but it’s still going to be a lot of people who prefer to go to a float center than to have the space for one in their home, or the cost of one in their home, or the maintenance of one in their home.

For the people who do have one in their home, to me that’s just like a huge point of conversation. Any time anybody goes over to that person’s house, they’re going to be like wait what is that, and that’s just that many more people that know about float tanks. I don’t know, I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if that like took down the industry, because everyone started buying float tanks for their houses.

Graham: At the point that you’re floating less than once every couple weeks, or once a month, or so. If your thing is you like to hop in a float tank once a month, or once every two months it still probably doesn’t make sense for you to have a float tank in your home necessarily. Right? So there’s this whole market of people who are not coming in incredibly regularly, who just for no other reason than financial viability won’t go down that route.

Ashkahn: Time will really tell what ends up happening, but I don’t know that’s my personal hunch is that it probably won’t have to much of an impact.

Graham: In a similar sense that public pools and stuff aren’t destroyed by people having private pools in their house, or places where gyms where people can go and go into a sauna or a hot tub, aren’t destroyed by people able to have personal home gyms, or saunas, or hot tubs at their house.

It’s just there will of course be people who want that privacy, and want to take advantage of it. I think though there’s always going to be a broader group of people who are just not that regular users who would want to go to a center, and even having people take care of you. Not having to clean up after yourself is another big thing that I think drives some people in when they just want to be pampered.

Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely or just kind of everything about the amount of space it takes. I mean there’s some float tanks out there that are trying to fix that issue for people’s homes. Make them more space wise I guess.

Graham: I guess here’s what I’m trying to say, is I don’t feel like they’re competing markets. Like I feel like there’s a huge benefit to having a float tank in your home, and there’s a whole group of people who’s stoked about it, and that number of people is growing. I think that also the people who are excited to go into a float center and go float, of course there’s some overlap because floating is involved, but I think fundamentally they’re just two totally different markets growing in two very different directions, but both growing right now. I don’t see that much competition between them.

So, like we always say, take a walk or you’ll never know what’s out there!

Recent Podcast Episodes

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

Graham has Juliet on the podcast today since Ashkahn is doing some post-Conference traveling. 

The duo talks about times when floating just doesn’t feel like a good idea, which is something they have a bit of disagreement about. Juliet shares her experiences being cautious of her experiences in the tank and how she tends to have to be more mindful of when she floats. 

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

How do you Handle Changing Memberships? – DSP 274

This year at the Float Conference, Derek hosted a marketing forum and took questions that he wanted to share with everyone here. 

This episode focuses on how Float On handles memberships, including tiered memberships and how to gracefully transition from one type of membership to another.

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

Are Vapor Barriers a Good Idea for Float Centers? – DSP 273

You can tell when Graham starts to miss Ashkahn when he makes a soundboard made up of sound clips from previous episodes just to have Ashkahn do another intro. 

Jake and Graham break down barriers in this episode. Vapor barriers, that is. These tools are a little confusing in the construction world and their efficacy is hotly debated in just regular construction, never mind the demands that a float center has, especially in regards to moisture protection. Fortunately, Graham and Jake know a thing or two about a thing or two and explain what vapor barriers are, how they work, and what the source of contention is. 

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

What to Consider with Plumbing in a New Float Center – DSP 272

Graham and Jake talk about the confusing world of plumbing for your float center. There are any number of unpleasant surprises that can come about when planning the water lines to showers, getting floor drains in place, and making sure everything lines up how it’s supposed to. If the sewer main is too deep or not where you think it is, it can add a significant amount of cost to your build out just to get floor drains installed. Fortunately, the guys have some useful tricks to help mitigate costs and plan accordingly.

When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275

Should I use Spray-in Insulation for my Float Center? – DSP 271

Graham and Jake are still in a sans Ashkahn world at Daily Solutions, but they’re not letting it harsh their mellow. 

The guys are talking about the different types of spray-in insulation today. It’s a pretty common material in construction and it can be a fantastic insulator for float centers, if you get the right type. 

Jake and Graham go over the differences between open cell and closed cell insulation and why, specifically, float centers should avoid open cell insulation. They also provide some excellent pointers on the materials themselves and good conversations to have with a contractor regarding insulation. 

Latest Blog Posts

Oh, the Questions You’ll Hear!

Oh, the Questions You’ll Hear!

When you run a float tank center, you’re going to get asked a lot of questions. Do I float naked? Can I drown? Is this sanitary? Many of these are easy to answer: It’s recommended. Not without a conscious, and determined effort. Yes! There are some questions, however,...

Happy TANKSgiving (Giving Gifts to Monthly Members)

Happy TANKSgiving (Giving Gifts to Monthly Members)

Monthly memberships are an important way to ensure that your float tank center has a consistent, if not dependable, amount of business.

While pricing structures for memberships vary widely across the industry, we’re focusing less on the strategy of what to charge and looking more at the benefits we’re actually offering. Once we’ve established a solid offering, then we can revisit pricing.

Running a successful monthly membership program takes more than just charging customers and making sure they use their credits. With a little creativity, we can find ways to increase engagement.

The Float Tour Blog Roundup!

The Float Tour Blog Roundup!

The following is our collection of links to the all of the Float Tour blogs. My chronicling of our adventure, highlighting all of you out there.

Thank you for the memories.