Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Starting up a float center out of your home isn’t nearly as daunting as it may sound at first and is a great way to get your foot in the door. Graham and Ashkahn break down the logistics of this time honored tradition in the industry.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “what do I need to do differently when running a float center out of my home?”
Well, probably not run a 24 hour operation. Unless you are just that extreme, you know.
Ashkahn: Well, so I’m assuming you’re not talking about … You need to get some sort of thing to be able to run a business out of your home.
Graham: Right, so we are assuming over the radar.
Ashkahn: Yeah, or you are just running some test floats for friends and stuff like that.
Graham: And not really taking money for them or turning it into a business or anything.
Ashkahn: Like towards the path of opening in a commercial space. But just running a commercial business out of your home probably has like zoning questions and depends on your city, and a few things like that that you might want to look into.
Graham: So assuming all of your commercial zoning ducks are in a row, then what’s different?
Ashkahn: Well …
Graham: Usually you don’t build out the rooms as intensely-
Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely not.
Graham: …as you would a float tank center.
Ashkahn: Some extreme construction to do to your house. You’d have a really weird room left in your house if you ever took that float tank out after this point.
Graham: Yes, so most notably though means there is not as much salt and water proofing up around your own house as there would be in a float tank center.
Ashkahn: Which is kind of dangerous, like the salt …
Graham: Scary, scary is a word I would use to describe it.
Ashkahn: Scary, so you’re vulnerable to that sort of salt and water damage, and you have to be careful about what you are actually doing. There are certain things you can do to minimize the risk as much as possible. It’s probably easy to put some layer of something on the ground that would do some amount of water-proofing without going to extreme. You probably want to think about where the closest shower is, you probably don’t want someone having to walk all the way across your house to a shower. Like putting in a room closest to the bathroom is going to help you out a lot.
Graham: In general, I guess, moving it into portions of your house that are less nice than other ones, right? Like if you have a choice between like hardwood maple floors and an unfinished basement, maybe throw your float tank down in the unfinished basement.
Ashkahn: Yeah, maybe not on the second story, and some of it comes with how you talk to people when they come into float. One of the nice things about having a float tank in your house is you probably have one float tank. It’s like one person coming in at a time. It’s just a lot more manageable than a commercial float center. So you really have the chance with these persons that come through to say, “Hey, once you hop out of your float, stand here on this little drying stand thing I put right in front of the float tank.”
Graham: Like a tray, like a float tray. It’s really common, too, actually. Even if you order home tanks from the manufacturer, oftentimes they have little trays you step out into and kind of catch the saltwater, because they realize you are not going to have drains everywhere and perfectly laminate floors and everything.
Ashkahn: So step out there and do a really good job of drying yourself off, put on this robe, like do that before you walk away. You can tell them that otherwise the salt kind of gets everywhere and can damage the place. You just have a much more one on one interaction with someone to try to encourage them to not spread salt and water all over the place. I think they’ll probably understand they’re in the house, it’s obvious it is not a like a giant waterproof thing like maybe a commercial float center would have.
Graham: Like running a commercial float center sometimes I feel people want to get every last dollar that they spent on their float. Like to them that means getting out of the tank and shaking off like a shaggy dog and just getting water everywhere.
Ashkahn: Splashing.
Graham: Using every possible thing they can in the basket, like there’s almost a sense when you are in a place of business that you get to not worry about that kind of stuff. So stressing that, and again, that just kind of naturally happens that when people are in your home they understand and will take better care of it than they would in a totally commercial space.
Ashkahn: So that’s probably the biggest one, it’s a concern and there are ways to go about dealing with it without spending the kind of construction money that you would in a commercial retail style shop float center. There are some obvious ones like you want it to be quiet so find the quietest room in your house, like this is probably going to be hard to do if you live in an apartment building, or in near a busy road, or any of that sort of stuff. You’re going to have to blank out the windows to not allow any light to get in.
Graham: That said, my first float was in an apartment building.
Ashkahn: Yeah, mine too. Most float tanks don’t come totally light proof. Although the more home style float tanks do tend to do a better job of light proofing than the other ones. So depending on what tanks you purchase, it might be more or less of a concern to completely and perfectly make the room the float tank is in pitch black.
You’re going to have to do some laundry. You’ll have to do a lot more laundry than you are used to doing for the amount of towels people are using. So you’ll get used to that.
Graham: And you’ll just have to keep a really close eye on things. The nice thing about this is I’ve known people who’ve had float tanks in their apartments for 15 to 20 years and it is a carpeted apartment. There’s no damage. It’s totally possible to maintain a float tank in your private residence without completely destroying your house.
And I know float tanks that have been in people’s houses that have sprung leaks and done a lot of damage, so there’s … It’s not really different than a commercial center, except for the fact that …
Ashkahn: It’s your house.
Graham: I was going to say, and again, people are a little more cautious and tend to take it a little more easier on your house then they may do on a commercial center.
Ashkahn: I think there’s benefits, too, to having float center in your house. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that you can offer a really nice personalized, individual experience for people coming to float. Like you’re there, you’re giving them all your attention, you can do cool things, have snacks for them afterwards, have stuff like that that’s a lot easier to do for one person than when you are floating like 60 people a day or something like that. Have juice, have a chance to really sit down and just chat with them afterwards, for whatever 10 minutes, 20 minute, an hour. Like it is just a much more casual, nice, person to person experience than is really possible to run that easily in a … Like you got to work a lot harder in a commercial float center, too, to provide that same sort of experience.
Graham: Yeah, we spent a lot of money trying to get our lobby to kind of feel like a nice living room, if it’s in your house, you have a living room. So, mission accomplished.
Ashkahn: It’s probably a little more peaceful, it’s out in the neighborhood, there’s a lot …
Graham: Generally less noise concerns, too. The float itself might be noisier, because you’ve done less soundproofing on your house than you would in a center, but usually you have way less big trucks, less noise coming in than you would have in a commercial center. It’s a little easier to just maintain in that sense. Everything kind of balances out, like you’re not going to be able to make a ton of money running it, no way is running one tank out of your house going to make you wealthy or anything like that. Getting to pull in a little ancillary income and provide floating, if you’re doing another job or something like that, or just if you’re trying to get used to float tanks and build up to having a commercial center, this can also be a really nice …
Ashkahn: Or if you just want a float tank in your house and this is how you’re justifying it.
Graham: Yeah, it’s like funding some of the maintenance and chemicals and cleaning with the people coming through. That’s how you maintain your own private float tank, that you get to float in five times a day, or whatever moderate amount of floating you decide to do.
Ashkahn: Yeah, be careful about that, be careful about humidity, is another one you should consider when putting this float tank into a place. You’ll probably want to make sure there is some amount of ventilation or something happening so that you’re not slowly destroying the room that it is in with humidity.
Graham: Yeah, and again, other than the fact that they’re totally different business models, there’s actually a ton concern wise that’s different, it’s just a much lower scale. You’re still worried about soundproofing, just not as much. You’re still worried about making sure water and salt don’t destroy your building, but you’re probably going to use less actually protection and really more on people’s conscientiousness to protect your floors. Again, that little tray you set out in front. Your showers aren’t going to be directly connected to the float tank, but you’ll probably have some sort of walkway going out there. It’s all the same things again, just much, much tinier concerns than in a full blown float center.
Ashkahn: And you get to give people some really crazy stories. People are going to get to leave and tell their friends they went to some random person’s house and hopped inside of a sensory deprivation tank.
Graham: And they just got out and had the best orange juice in the world.
Ashkahn: Yeah, so that’s fun, you get to contribute that to the world.
Graham: And if you have anymore questions to shoot along our way, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How Many Managers Does it Take to Run a Float Center? – DSP 200
Not every float center owner wants to be tethered to working their shop for the rest of their lives. In fact, even some that enjoy that work immensely can be doing their business a disservice by focusing on day-to-day operations as opposed to dedicating their time to marketing or expansion.
So how do float center owners get out of the shop? How many managers (Or Taco Supremes as they’re called at Float On) does it take to effectively replace the shop owner at a business. Ashkahn and Graham have successfully implemented a system at Float On that allows them to be much more hands off on the business than when they first opened and they share how got to that point and how their business structure has evolved.
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
What’s the Best Representation of Float Tanks in TV or Movies? – DSP 196
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
