Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
In this episode, Graham and Ashkahn succinctly breakdown the cost of float room construction. The average float room cost per the industry survey is $75,000 per room. How much of that is float tank cost and how much is construction? There are some variables to consider based on geography and types of tanks, but the guys lay out the average and clarify some of the numbers we’ve released previously.
Show Resources
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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “the state of the industry survey shows people spend about $75,000 per float room. How much of that is the tank cost versus construction cost?”
Ashkahn: Basically float tanks can range from probably around $10,000 at the cheapest for a commercial float tank.
Graham: Plus pump set up and all of that, yeah.
Ashkahn: Up to, I mean, they can get up to-
Graham: $90,000?
Ashkahn: Yeah, $90,000 dollars for a float tank.
Graham: So if you’re buying a $90,000 dollar float tank, then you’re now in negative money for room construction, negative $15,000. So, it depends a lot on what people are doing individually, and of course the survey itself is very subjective for what people are putting in there almost, so how people are defining everything that’s going into their room construction. It’s probably not 100% accurate even between individuals filling out the survey.
Ashkahn: But, I would say, if I had to make an average guess of how much people are spending on float tanks, it’s probably somewhere around $30,000 dollars a float tank. 30 – 35.
Graham: Which would be about $45,000 for doing the room construction, and I would say actually between maybe like $35,000 to $45,000 is not a crazy amount to assume for room construction. So not quite half and half, or half and half of the split that’s different for different people or something like that, depending on how much soundproofing largely you’re doing.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and we see that in general in terms of people’s cost total, float tank plus for rooms. It really does seem to range pretty much somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 dollars for the whole shebang for a room. That was always kind of our calculations, and then seeing the industry report averaged that at about $75,000 kind of seems to support that.
So my guess is people on the higher end people are buying probably slightly more expensive float tanks and doing slightly more expensive construction, and at the lower end people are probably buying cheaper float tanks and doing cheaper construction.
Graham: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Again, there’s an, “Oh, yeah.” They’re like both how people are answering that question, and what you decide to do for your own center, and types of tanks, and whether you’re in the middle of a city or out in the countryside. All of these are going to affect how much is going into your individual build.
So, don’t assume that if you’re coming in a little under, if your ratio of tank to construction is different then the industry average that you’re somehow doing something wrong. It largely does have to do with how many tanks you’re installing at once, and how much crazy soundproofing you need to block out from city noises, and airplanes, and things like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah, you might just have less expensive construction if you’re way outside the city and you don’t have a ton of noise to deal with.
Graham: Yeah, just throw your float tank down a grassy hill somewhere-
Ashkahn: Yeah, call it good. Sprinkle some salt in the lake.
Graham: Sprinkle? I think it’d be a little more than that. This giant industrial dump operation puts Epsom salt or something into a lake.
So, if you have any more questions, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and we will answer them.
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In this post we’ll lay out a general process and timeline of what you may encounter on your path, from initial idea to actually operating a center.
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So you’re thinking about using volunteers in your float center?
Before we clarify what a “volunteer” actually means, we’ll first explore why a float center might be considering them in the first place. While it can be a way to provide floats to people who are otherwise unable to pay, the impulse to bring in volunteers can also stem from a desire to get some sort of free labor (later in this post we’ll dive into why you can’t actually do this, but it’s important to recognize that the instinct is understandable, especially when you have someone lined up and willing to work for free).
In addition to a desired boost in overall productivity, it’s also a way to invite more people into your center to experience what you do. Some customers actually want to help out and see what happens behind the scenes at a center.
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Broadly speaking, it’s a tool for homeostasis, an ideal environment that supports balance, health, and growth. This piece will look specifically at floating and athletics. For anyone who defines themselves as an athlete, or as a general pursuant of athletic endeavors, the float tank can be a powerful asset.
In this post, I’ll discuss individual athletes who float and how to look at this from a marketing perspective. I’ll also discuss past and present research, and share some thoughts on how the relationship between the athletic and floating communities might continue to unfold.
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I think it’s time we addressed the giant metaphorical elephant in the salty metaphorical room — there are lots of exaggerated and untrue claims about the benefits of floating being spread around the industry.
Some are anecdotal, some are only half true, and some are just patently false. Floating has historically had a strong oral tradition tied to it — the practice has survived through word-of-mouth, one passionate floater teaching another everything they know. The unfortunate thing about this is that the information disseminated can’t be reliably tested or shared with others on a broader scale. You can’t use “my buddy Chris” as a source for a health benefit of float tanks in a newspaper article, much less for a research paper.
Now that we’re becoming a bit more mainstream, we thought it would be nice to add some clarity to what we should and shouldn’t be telling people about these difficult-to-understand, saliferous containers.
