Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Ashkahn and Graham break down the differences between float tanks designed for home use in comparison to ones intended for a commercial setting. Depending on how it’s intended to be used can drastically affect the construction of the tank. Most home use tanks, for example, aren’t made of fiberglass, because those large, rigid structures are difficult to move by yourself or just with one other person. Likewise, the filtration demands for a home use tank are a lot different.
Listen in and check out all the differences and which tanks are more intended for use at home as opposed to commercial use.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is “What are differences between tanks for home use and commercial use?”
Ashkahn: Uh.
Graham: Well, commercial use are more expensive.
Ashkahn: Um. Basically just like everything’s easier for home use. You can have …
Graham: And typically less expensive.
Ashkahn: And typically less expensive. You can have a commercial tank. I mean a lot of people have what you would call a quote unquote “commercial tank” in their home. And there’s like a lot fewer companies selling specifically home use tanks than there are just companies selling float tanks.
Graham: And often what that’ll turn into is home use filtration pack. I see more commonly than just a full home use tank. Although, obviously, there are some.
Ashkahn: Really so one case, there’s like the Zen Float Tent. Which is specifically a home use tank. And that’s the only company I know of that only sells home use. Right?
Graham: You can’t see it in the audience, but in the studio, I’m nodding very slowly.
Ashkahn: Slowly nodding. Processing.
Graham: Thoughtfully, searching my brain.
Ashkahn: That’s it. That’s it.
Graham: I think that’s it.
Ashkahn: I’m pretty sure. Unless there’s people out there making, you know, little custom.
Graham: Or DIY kinda. Float tank solutions. That’s actually what I was going through.
Ashkahn: But in terms of a manufactured product that you can just kinda purchase, I’m pretty sure that’s at least the biggest of them.
Graham: And then Samadhi, of course. Has their home use models.
Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s a few companies. Samadhi, Escape Pod, and maybe a few other companies specifically sell kind of like a home use version, commercial version. You can look on their website and see the differences between those.
Graham: Even Oasis markets theirs as home use vs commercial use.
Ashkahn: In those cases they’re just selling the same actual unit mostly, most of the time. Then the filtration system is the big difference.
Graham: Yeah, and then Samadhi has also some specifically home use models that you can get that are not their modified regular tank that’s specifically only meant for use in residential settings.
Ashkahn: And so why the filtration system? What is so different every time? Part of it is …
Graham: You’re just going to answer your own question? I thought you were asking me?
Ashkahn: Yup, I’m just setting myself up you know. I’m about to slam this one.
Graham: Alright go for it.
Ashkahn: What is the … Okay so the reason is that, basically in a commercial center time is very important. Getting someone out of their tank …
Graham: It’s literally money yeah.
Ashkahn: Yeah it’s literally money.
Graham: Maybe not literally, maybe metaphorically.
Ashkahn: Time equals money and you’re basically trying to get people in in some sort of efficient manner. You’ve got a schedule to keep you want to be able to do as many floats as you can in a day and because you filter between customers, that amount of time that it takes to filter the tank and get ready for the next person is directly tied to how long you need to wait before you can put another person in the float tank. So there is a lot of motivation to spend more money on bigger equipment, bigger pumps, bigger everything that goes with the bigger pumps so that you can filter the water appropriately in 15 minutes between one person and the next and get someone else into the float tank. That sort of pressure is not really there in your house. It’s fine if it filters for a few hours.
Graham: All of a sudden when 15 minutes turns into four hours between clients coming in, that’s just a way easier equation. It takes way less intense filtration equipment and it makes the cost of that filtration equipment to go considerable lower as well.
Ashkahn: The speed is a huge part of it. The speed that the liquid is moving through the system, dictates the size of all of your equipment. The faster everything needs to move, the bigger everything needs to be, the more expensive everything needs to be …
Graham: The more hard core the seals are, so it doesn’t just explode itself apart from all the water pressure, yeah
Ashkahn: It’s usually not going to get to four hours of filtration but, the other thing too is there’s regulations and a certain amount of scrutiny that people expect out of a commercial operation that doesn’t exist for homes. For all sorts of stuff, pools and hot tubs. If you install a pool in your backyard, the health department is not coming to make sure you’re chlorinating it properly or any of that sort of stuff. If you put a pool into a commercial facility, they for sure make sure you are doing all of these things. That’s cause the risk is a lot lower.
If you have a pool in your backyard, what’s happening in there? You’re swimming once every week, maybe, and the other people swimming are like a few family members. The amount of people, the capacity that those things are hitting and the amount of, as a result of capacity, bacteria and all the other stuff that comes in there. That even happening in a home use situation is so much lower than a commercial situation. You’re most likely to get yourself sick. Which I think provides some motivation for you to do some basic sanitation in your home.
Really this is all about an actual home use thing. Not like running a commercial center out of your home.
Graham: Which, I would still put in the commercial tank category.
Ashkahn: That basically, you should have a commercial tank in that scenario.
Graham: Another thing that I’ll see, you’ll have tanks with liners at all different levels but I do think that liner tanks are a little more common for home use as well. Especially the Zen Float Tent, which is one giant liner essentially. I think that keeps cost down a little bit.
It’s also just because there’s less of a concern with having total strangers come in, day in day out, on this really tight schedule. Eventually your liners do get worn down, someone could’ve just had a little piece of gravel or something on their foot and it rips the bottom of it or something like that. In home use tanks with it being like you said, largely yourself, your friends, people you know, your family, coming in and not all that frequent. I think, it’s just way less scary proposition having a liner in a home use setting. It’s just going to last longer and just be a little more durable in that with less use.
Ashkahn: I think it also has a lot to do with getting the float tank into the room you’re trying to put it in. In a commercial place; you’re building a place, you’re set up, you’re trying to make hallways big enough, you’re not going to modify the construction of your house because you want to put a float tank in. For your home they’ve got to build something that can go up narrow stairs, turn corners, and a liner means you don’t all of a sudden have one giant single tub piece that needs to be able to maneuver around.
Graham: Transportability is another big factor in the differences between home use and residential tanks for sure. What did I just say? That’s the same thing. Home use and commercial tanks.
Ashkahn: I’d say the other one is there tends to be, I’ve noticed from home use systems, a slightly higher attention paid to really making the float tank, make sure everything is dark. In the commercial setting there’s a lot of float tanks that don’t do that, right? They let light in and you’re just supposed to build the room itself to be completely dark so that the inside of the float tank is dark. That’s way harder to do when you are installing a float tank in your house. There’s a little bit more of a motivation to make the float tank itself take care of the light proofing for you.
Graham: Yeah, for sure. Any other? I guess the control systems are often times a little less robust. Sometimes you’ll just have switches and things on them, on the unit as opposed to have a remote control that you’re operating from your living room I guess in this case or wherever it is.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s not really necessary. I guess the other thing is power. There’s some commercial float tanks that come at 220 Volts and their heaters might require more amperage and stuff like that. People who make float tanks for home use put a little more consideration into not having it be a huge power draw and having it plug into a normal 110 …
Graham: The fact people are just putting it into their garage or spare room they have or something.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: So there you have it.
Ashkahn: That’s it.
Graham: Some differences between home and commercial use. You know, again, just to go back to something we said at the beginning. You really can use commercial use tanks in your house. It’s just often like using a commercial washer and dryer in your house right? It won’t break anything, in fact it will probably last for longer. Just maybe is a little overkill for what you actually need.
Ashkahn: And you really shouldn’t use home use tanks in your commercial business.
Graham: Is the vise versa, yeah. Nor should you use just residential washers and dryers, in general, for your business. We’ve been finding out, those things get destroyed by salty towels.
Ashkahn: Yeah, they don’t last that long.
Graham: Great! If you have your own questions you’d like to listen to us answer, go to floattankssolutions.com/podcast
Recent Podcast Episodes
Funding your center through Kickstarter – DSP 119
Crowdfunding has made so many projects possible that would otherwise not exist. It seems perfect for niche ideas, concepts that would otherwise never see the light of day, and passion projects that just need to happen. This sounds perfect for float centers, but there are some caveats.
Crowdfunding is time intensive and there’s not guarantee of success. Aside from that, there are some issues with it that complicate things for float centers that other crowdfunded projects likely won’t face. Graham and Ashkahn talk about the successes of float center crowdfunding and the not-so-successes as well.
Don’t Build Your Own Float Tank! – DSP 118
For anyone considering a DIY float tank, give this episode a listen first. This isn’t a discussion on the merits of doing things one way versus another or expressing an opinion on one side and playing devil’s advocate for the other. Graham and Ashkahn know painfully well from personal experience the pitfalls of falling into the hubris trap of thinking you can build your own float tanks. They built two large open tanks in Float On and even years later they still cause headaches.
What’s more, they’ve spoken with dozens of people who’ve also gone through this themselves and heard their horror stories after they didn’t listen to the advice of not doing it.
The perception that it can be a cost-cutting measure or a more reliable way to get an operating float tank in your center by going DIY is generally pretty flawed. There’s so much to it that you just can’t consider before the fact.
Should Your Float Center have a Blog? – DSP 117
This seems like a good idea on paper. It helps with SEO stuff for Google. It gives you an outlet to write about floating and share information about the industry. And it seems to fall in line with something that other businesses do, right?
So what are the downsides? How much time and effort does a blog really take? What sort of impact does it have for a float center? Graham and Ashkahn lay out the pros and cons as well as things you may not initially consider about the responsibility of having a blog.
Thoughts on Buying Yelp Ads – DSP 116
There are lots of businesses that experience the dogged persistence of Yelp sales people calling them. Float On has done both buying Yelp ad space and living without it and Graham and Ashkahn break down exactly what that experience was like.
They also go into exactly what Yelp ads mean and how it impacts your float center (or doesn’t, as the case may be) as well as how well Yelp stacks up in comparison to other ad sources.
When is it Time to Open a Second Float Center? – DSP 115
Okay, so… Float On only has one location (not counting Float On Hong Kong) and there’s certainly a reason for that. Graham and Ashkahn have toyed with the idea of opening up another center multiple times throughout the years but something else always came up. As they’ve met more people in the industry, they’ve seen some of the pitfalls and successes from people opening additional locations, franchises and whatever else. They share their thoughts on when they think it’d be best to open and why they say to wait a little bit.
Latest Blog Posts
Much Ado About Nothing
Today, I’d like to talk to you about nothing. But first I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Ashkahn, and I’m one of the co-founders of Float On. I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life entirely devoted to these magical boxes we’ve all discovered, and...
Past & Present of Oasis & Future of Floating
My focus here/now will be on the past [portion of this 'assignment'] that set me up to be involved in floatation work... It was probably inevitable that I would end up involved with float tanks .... When your last name is Wasserman, which means 'waterman' in german*,...
Past, Present, Future
My life is focused around balance. This is the key to everything I do; A balance between cosmic vows of spirituality, family, and the business with the scales constantly being tipped back and forth on the scale.To understand why I am involved in the Flotation Industry...
The Art of Managing Expectations
When considering opening a floatation center, I came across the following story that helped me understand the process that I was going to be going through as the owner of Float Matrix. There once was a plumber who was excellent at what he did. He knew everything...
