Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Most float centers run a tight schedule with narrow margins for the transitions between floats. Oftentimes relying on their customers to take reasonably timed showers to fit that schedule. If a single customer takes a shower that’s a bit too long, it can throw of the schedule for the rest of the day!
What if showers were in a separate room? Then customers could shower as long as they want! Ashkahn and Graham explain why this is an extremely bad idea.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: All right, howdy do dah, everyone. This is Ashkhan.
Graham: Hey, Graham is my name.
Ashkahn: And we’re coming in swinging today, so let’s do it. Let’s get this question going. Here we go. Here we go. It’s on fire. It’s hot in here. You hot? It’s hot in here. I’m sweating. You gonna ask the question?
Graham: I was just waiting. You just wouldn’t even give me … and you didn’t quiet down-
Ashkahn: Sorry.
Graham: … for any length of time over there.
Ashkahn: I came in a little hot. I was coming in a little hot. I was coming in swinging there.
Graham: “Would it be a good idea to put showers in a separate room from your flotation room?”
Ashkahn: That’s our question?
Graham: “This would make the turnover time quicker. I’m worried about guests that take long showers. Also, this way I would be able to make sure they definitely got showers before entering the float tank/pod.”
Ashkahn: I mean, no. Just the answer is no.
Graham: Yeah, I mean, unless you want like a desalting, like minimal shower inside your float room. And then also, a place where they’d take the longer shower outside the float room. I mean, well let’s talk about saving time during transitions, because-
Ashkahn: Okay, I’m like everything they’re saying is a positive thing, but it’s just none of it comes anywhere close to the downsides you get from having a shower, like basically having salt everywhere.
Graham: Everywhere.
Ashkahn: Everywhere.
Graham: I mean, that’s what gonna take the longest time to clean up. And we’ve said it many times. I mean, one of the biggest mistakes we made as a small business, and it wasn’t even in separate rooms. We just put the showers a little too far away from the entrance to our tanks, so people had to take like two steps after they’d get out of the tank into the shower. And that made our lives miserable. I can’t imagine if they were actually like saltily leaving the room and tracking salt everywhere in order to get into a shower.
Ashkahn: This is literally our single biggest piece of float advice, is put your showers as close to your float tanks as possible.
Graham: And I have nightmares about it being in a separate room, you know? Just like-
Ashkahn: I can sit like outside of-
Graham: … salty customers chasing me down dark hallways.
Ashkahn: Trails of salt leading around. Yeah, I mean, yes, like it takes more time ’cause people are showering in the rooms. That, of course, is like a big downside and it hurts your turnovers. There are ways to cut down on that by having vanity rooms for people to put themselves back together, and stuff like that.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Even forget the theory here for a second. Like every single float center I’ve went to that had their showers outside the room very blatantly told me it was a huge mistake, and they regret it. Yeah.
Graham: Yeah, they regret it. yeah. They have even worse nightmares than I have, I’m sure.
Ashkahn: Yeah, like from the people who have done it, no one has been like, “This was a great idea.”
Graham: So yeah, I mean, having dressing rooms outside of it, having vanity rooms outside. Both of those, I think, are better ways to take some of the activities out than the shower specifically. Yeah, even things just like trying to … there are other ways, I guess, to cut down on shower time as well. There are showers that you can get with LED shower heads that change color. They turn red after you’ve been in the shower for a certain amount of time. You could do little timers. Stuff like that to me feels like just a better place to start investing some of your brain power into for this, rather than eliminating the shower from the room.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean, in some ways it’s probably cheaper, too, ’cause you already have to do so much waterproofing and putting drains into your float rooms to begin with. You’re making this kind of shower-like environment whether you have a shower in there or not. Or if you’re not, you’re making another big mistake.
Graham: I didn’t even need another reason to agree with this more, but you just gave it to me.
Ashkahn: Okay, the other thing they said-
Graham: Well, yeah. They said more, they said more.
Ashkahn: Here’s the other thing they said, is that they wanted to make sure people are showering.
Graham: Yeah, before they get in.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: ‘Cause I assume they realize that when people are all salty and leaving, they really do usually want to shower.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and that’s what we’re saying here. They’re gonna be so salty afterwards.
Graham: Yeah, but going into a tank they’re not salty.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean, people are showering. At the end of the day, like I’d take it from us and every other float center out there, it’s extremely unlikely that someone doesn’t shower before they go in. You can hear the showers. Some centers have systems set up to like-
Graham: Float On.
Ashkahn: … have some sort of sensor or something where people are showering. Or whatever, light detectors, or there’s all sorts of different things I’ve seen out there.
Graham: Lie detectors?
Ashkahn: Yeah, polygraph just connected …
Graham: Wait, what? Oh, light!
Ashkahn: Light, light, motion-
Graham: Sorry.
Ashkahn: … motion detectors.
Graham: I really thought you said lie detectors there. “Did you shower before getting in the tank?”
Ashkahn: They don’t make those noises, but for the purpose of this audio gag, we’re gonna pretend they do. But yeah, the float tank is just a unique enough context for most people, that if you say, “Take a shower before you go in,” people are gonna be like, “That’s when you do when you float. You take a shower before you go in.”
Graham: And if you have the shower right by the entrance to the float tank, I mean, you just made it super easy to do.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s easy. Their clothes are already off. In fact, it’s almost like more annoying to have to shower, put on a robe, be wet and like dripping and grabbing your stuff, or whatever. I’ve done this. I’ve been to a float center before where I had to do that. And like, it wasn’t as nice of an experience for me as a floater to feel like I had to kind of amble my way around all wet, and felt like I was dripping salt on my way back, and stuff like that.
Graham: If you don’t have like a fancy shower sensor kind of setup, go be a creep and listen at the doors of your customers’ rooms after you check them in for the shower going on, and you’ll probably find that it’s 100% roughly-
Ashkahn: Everybody, yeah.
Graham: … people that shower before going in.
Ashkahn: Everybody’s showering. And if it’s not, I mean, if it’s 99.9999%, or whatever.
Graham: Yeah, it’s like five logs worth there that are showering, so you’re good.
Ashkahn: Our systems should be set up to deal with stuff like that. That’s where all of your sanitation operations come in. So yeah, just don’t put showers outside your float room for our sake. Like I’m gonna have nightmares thinking about what your life is gonna be like.
Graham: Cool. Anything else? I think that’s all I have.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: That was a pretty clear message on this one.
Ashkahn: It was, yeah. Usually we provide a little bit more nuance and gray area.
Graham: Yeah, two sides of a story.
Ashkahn: Pros and cons, but no.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: This is-
Graham: Definitely shower, and not only in the room,-
Ashkahn: It would be a mistake.
Graham: … but as close to the opening to the float tank.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Don’t have any space between the-
Ashkahn: The shower, you step in and out of the float tank into the shower.
Graham: Into the shower, it’s like a shower lock.
Ashkahn: That’s the key.
Graham: Like you’re in salt lock.
Ashkahn: That’s what you should be doing, yeah.
Graham: That’s where, if you were a space station, people would come to desalt, or resalt I guess, or whatever they do. Anyway, don’t.
Ashkahn: We’re not astronauts, all right.
Graham: We’re float tank podcasters. There is a difference. Go to floattanksolutions.com.
Ashkahn: Yep, /podcast. Type in questions.
Graham: Yep, you know the drill.
Ashkahn: Yeah, hopefully at this point.
Graham: And if you don’t, then ask us what it is.
Ashkahn: That’ll be our next question.
Graham: You can go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Ashkahn: Yeah, perfect. Okay.
Graham: All right, talk to you soon, everyone.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: Bye.
Ashkahn: Goodbye.
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Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #27
Our northern neighbor – a sister city, of sorts – Seattle is the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the land of Microsoft and Kurt Cobain, and the culture here embraces both simultaneously. It’s tech business professional in the front and rock n’ roll grunge in the back. This blend creates a perfect storm of high energy business life and high energy nightlife, making relaxation a valuable commodity. Floating helps fill the void left by nightmarish traffic and overcrowded restaurants.
Given that it’s so close to home, the float centers in Seattle are a lot more familiar to us. Our visits here were more like a high school reunion than they were like the first day of school. During some of our visits, we were picking up conversations right where we left them.
The Float Tour Blog Issue #26
Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, and third largest on the West Coast. It’s a major hub for international trade, with one of the largest ports in the world, giving it a large migrant population, mainly from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. It’s also been a long-time home to the Canadian film industry, and has even been nicknamed “North Hollywood.” Dozens of film and television productions from major studios film here every year.
Vancouver is very much an international city. It has large boroughs dedicated to varying cultures, including one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. The society here is more receptive to new ideas, always looking for the next big thing; it’s not surprising that floating has blown up in Vancouver as much as it has.
In the last 3 years, 10 float centers have opened up, most of them being larger 4–6 tank centers. The really interesting thing is how they all opened within the same short amount of time about 1 ½ to 2 years ago, within months of each other.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #25
We finally made it back to the West Coast! We went through the Canadian Rockies and were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We drove through hours and hours of winding mountain roads, fertile valleys, and tiny towns so picturesque they looked like movie sets. It was so captivating, in fact, I suspect Graham and Ashkahn may have secretly replaced themselves with robotic doppelgängers to hike throughout Banff.
This post will focus on the smaller communities in B.C. that are bringing floating to new people every day. We also get to visit Canadian manufacturer Pro Float. They’re relatively new to the scene, just opening up earlier this year – another exciting sign of the growth in the industry.
