Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
With Ashkahn still taking his post-conference vacation, Graham and Juliet talk about what it’s like to have unpleasant floats.
Juliet shares her perspective in dealing with her anxiety condition while floating and how it can sometimes hinder the experience. Graham approaches it as an owner as well as someone who’s never experienced those kinds of hindrances in the tank.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham:
Ashkahn:
Recent Podcast Episodes
Should we Pay for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Services? – DSP 169
When opening any small business, you want to do what’s best to gain an edge in marketing and make sure that you’re doing your best for your flowering company. The new trends and changes can be daunting if you’re unfamiliar with technology or the marketing world.
Float centers are no exception. So when you get a call from someone claiming to be able to boost your SEO standing, it can seem like a really good deal. How do you tell if these companies are legit? And do float centers really need SEO help? Graham and Ashkahn break this down and simplify it for the uninitiated.
Should we do Tank Maintenance Ourselves? – DSP 168
As it turns out, there’s no certification program to running a float center. You buy these big expensive machines that require constant, technical maintenance and you’re on your own for how to accomplish that. There aren’t float tank repair persons that you can call (yet) and just have them show up and do it for you, so making sure you’re knowledgeable and prepared for this maintenance is a really good idea.
Graham and Ashkahn lay out the Float On best practices for how to plan for maintenance so that it’s the least disruptive for your center if something goes wrong.
What to Consider With a Home Float Center – DSP 167
Getting a tank in your house and floating some people is a great first step on the path to opening a float center. It helps you figure out exactly what the maintenance is going to be like, along with just the experience of floating other people and introducing them to this neat salty practice.
There are things to consider and there’s a right way and a wrong way to run a home based float center. First thing to consider is your local laws for small businesses and making sure you comply with those. Additionally, you need to decide if you’re just floating friends and family or if you’re going to have paying customers. This is also going to impact what type of float tank you should use and the demands you should consider on your house. Graham and Ashkahn have seen plenty of these and share the best practices as they’ve seen them laid out.
How to Deal With Burnout – DSP 166
Running a float center is hard work. Especially if you just opened up and dealt with months of agonizing, crazy construction, and then go straight into pulling long hours keeping your center open. Even with the reward of seeing floater’s post float glow can fall short of satisfying in some moments.
It’s important in these moments to take time for yourself so as not to get devoured by your work. Ashkahn and Graham share some of the things that helped them stay sane working long, thankless shifts at Float On in the early days and get through the hard days so that they could thrive.
Will Hard Water Affect a Float Tank? – DSP 165
Hard water is something that comes from having too many minerals in your water source. It can cause a lot of problems with plumbing if it’s too hard, and most buildings will have resources for dealing with this to help avoid calcium buildup in pipes and along tubs or pools. As for how it interacts with a float tank, specifically, it seems like the larger issue is going to be how it impacts the rest of your building.
Graham and Ashkahn break down what they know about how hard water affects float tanks and the differences you’re going to have to look out for if you’re using well water over municipal water sources.
Latest Blog Posts
Listening to Music in a Float Tank
To play or not to play music in the tank…
Some centers start the float with a few minutes of music and then fade away, some don’t play music until the end, and another float center will not let you turn off the light. In fact, they also have the noise of a automatic massage table, pounding away next to you, while other places will leave it up to the floater to decide. READ MORE…
Specific Gravity Specifics
Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density (mass of the same unit volume) of a reference substance. The reference substance is nearly always water for liquids or air for gases.” Specific gravity, then, in the case of our float tanks, is how dense the salt water is compared to regular, run of the mill water.
So, where should we keep the specific gravity of a float tank? READ MORE…
Don’t Squander Water in Your Showers
Once you start planning out the monthly costs for your float center, you’ll quickly come to appreciate a running joke in the industry: although you may think you’re providing floats, what you’re really doing is running a shower business.
Each person that floats at your center will take two showers: one before their float, and one after. These showers are definitely necessary. Before a customer enters a float tank, you’ll want them to shower in order to make sure that water contamination from skin oils and dirt is minimized, and after a float a customer is going to need a shower to remove the salty residue from their skin. READ MORE…
How Do You Properly Use Hydrogen Peroxide?
The Art of Floating, a great blog by the Float Shoppe here in Portland, has been answering questions that hit their inbox. Which is brilliant, and gives a second life to the extensive novellas on that minutiae of float tanks that I find myself writing daily. Here’s the first in what will hopefully be a series. READ MORE…
