Quote:
Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat
I have to ask, what makes a skimmer soo damned expensive? I mean, I have never seen a junk one yet, let alone a good one, but by looking at pictures, some acrylic tubing and a pump? I am an extreme DIY person and hate overpriced things(the if you need it, your gona pay attitude) with a passion, guess I just need some explanation why they cost so much.
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For the most part, you're paying for R&D, cost of materials and a decent pay wage for labor time.
Consider the prices on cast acrylic tubing ATM:
http://www.polymerplastics.com/trans...acrylict.shtml
- play with the prices (8"diameter, 1/4" thick @ $110.88/ft!!!)
http://www.professionalplastics.com/...c-Tubes---Cast
- $115.41 for 8.5"!!!
Additionally, many of the pumps are further modified from their stock versions. Royal Exclusive goes as far as to have Askoll custom manufacture motorblocks to their exacting specifications.
Toss in rising wages, import costs, wholesale distributor markups, retail markups, and boom, there's your skimmer price. By no means are the people at the manufacturing end making a KILLING off each individual skimmer.
Edit: Let's
imagine what it would cost to build a BK 250 with some inferred and some arbitrary numbers...
Cast acrylic tubing 12" diameter @ 3/8" thickness = $1155.49 (source:
http://www.polymerplastics.com/trans...acrylict.shtml)
PVC Sheet 3/8" = $68.57 (source
http://www.professionalplastics.com/...-Sheets-&-Rods)
Red Dragon retails at $830. Let's be conservative here and assume it costs the manufacturer about 40% of this value to custom order this from Askoll, then perform further modifications such as the anti-calcium bypass and CNC'd impellar = $300.00
Labor (I'm going to assume a decent wage since these things are manufactured in Germany, not China, so how about $35/hour? Let's go with a conservative two hours per unit) = $70.00
I'm not even going to include the price of rent, utilities, interest rates, blah blah blah...
Total costs to produce (estimation) $1594.06
- 25% just to account for anything I might be missing like wholesale discounts, etc $1195.55
Manufacturer's markup @ 15% (conservatively speaking) $1374.88
Wholesaler's markup @ 5% (again, conservative figure) $1443.62
Retail value of the unit $1824.99
Hope that makes sense.
Edit #2: All that said, I absolutely CANNOT figure out where Deltec gets off charging what it does. The construction is skimpy, the materials are just kinda okay (extruded acrylic on some models as I recall, ABS neck, Uniseal grommets vs. bonded bulkheads or PVC joints, the list of where they cheaped out goes on and on), and the customer service is non-existant (this may have changed recently, so don't hang me for it), OMG...
And for the record, YES, I do have experience with Deltecs.