Dacorum Sub Aqua Club
Buying Kit
This is a guide to buying diving equipment
Prices
Here is a very rough guide to the prices you are likely to pay for new diving
equipment.
The table shows two typical, complete sets of equipment - the lower and the higher specification sets that you might find owned by a diver of British waters.
The lower specification is not the cheapest possible you can buy. Neither is the higher specification the most expensive you can buy. The two specifications represent a sensible range of matching equipment for club diving.
| Category | Equipment | Lower specification | Higher specification | Difference | ||
| Clothing | Hood | £10.00 | £30.00 | £20.00 | ||
| Mask | £25.00 | £60.00 | £20.00 | |||
| Snorkel | £5.00 | £20.00 | £15.00 | |||
| Suit | Semi dry | £150.00 | Dry | £500.00 | £350.00 | |
| Boots | £20.00 | No need | £0.00 | -£20.00 | ||
| Gloves | £15.00 | £30.00 | £15.00 | |||
| Fins | £30.00 | £85.00 | £55.00 | |||
| Weightbelt | £30.00 | £70.00 | £40.00 | |||
| Aqualung | Cylinders | 15l | £150.00 | 7l | £110.00 | |
| 7l | £110.00 | |||||
| 12l | £130.00 | 7l | £110.00 | |||
| 7l | £110.00 | |||||
| Total |
£280.00 |
Total |
£440.00 |
£160.00 |
||
| Regulators | 1 with octo | £220.00 | 1 | £250.00 | ||
| 1 | £250.00 | |||||
| Total |
£220.00 |
Total |
£500.00 |
£280.00 |
||
| Contents Gauge | 1 | £40.00 | 2 | £80.00 | £40.00 | |
| Buoyancy Compensator | £250.00 | £400.00 | £150.00 | |||
| Tools | Compass | £30.00 | £40.00 | £10.00 | ||
| Surface Marker Buoy | £30.00 | £40.00 | £10.00 | |||
| Reel | £30.00 | £40.00 | £10.00 | |||
| Torch | £40.00 | Recharge | £100.00 | £60.00 | ||
| Knife | £25.00 | £35.00 | £10.00 | |||
| Timing | Watch | £30.00 | Computer | £300.00 | ||
| Depth gauge | £40.00 | Backup | £50.00 | |||
| Total |
£70.00 |
Total |
£350.00 |
£280.00 |
||
| Others | Divebag | £30.00 | £50.00 | £20.00 | ||
| Toolkit | £10.00 | £20.00 | £10.00 | |||
| Total | £1,340.00 | £2,890.00 | £1,550.00 | |||
| Category | Equipment | Lower specification | Higher specification | Difference | ||
Buying Tips
- All the prices you see in shops are inflated:
- shop around - its not uncommon to find expensive equipment 20% cheaper after calling several dive shops
- expect a discount if you buy several things at once
- To save money, go to dive shows and look for bargains in magazines.
- It's often a false economy to buy the cheapest, find it doesn't meet your needs,
sell it at second hand price and then buy the more expensive thing you
needed in the first place. Examples are:
- non-rechargeable torches
- semi-dry suits
- low specification computers
- Wait until you need a piece of equipment or have tried someone else's before buying. You'll be better able to judge what you like. You don't have to buy everything at once.
- You can dive safely and well without the latest and best of everything.
- Having too much equipment or an over complex configuration is very likely to cause you problems underwater. Many people opt of the least amount of kit and simplest configuration that's fit for the dive.
- If you want to do a particular type of diving, you will want kit suited to that type
of diving, for example,
- winter diving - dry suit, environmentally sealed regulator
- decompression diving - redundant air supplies, full spec computer
- nitrox diving - oxygen clean cylinders and regulators, nitrox computer
- longer, deeper dives - higher capacity cylinders or twin sets
- Beware of fashions: some are clever (redundant air supplies like ponies and twin sets) and others not so (black suits and black fins make the wearer difficult to find).
- To avoid losing expensive kit underwater, buy lanyards for computers, torches, knives and SMB reels.
Yes, some of these tips do contradict others! Choosing your kit is not straightforward.
Select this link to see the page on Equipment Configuration.
Select this link to see the page on Technical Diving Equipment.
Second hand
- Look out for adverts and ask about second hand kit, at the club, shops and in magazines.
- If you buy second hand, you need to add the cost of servicing of regulators and buoyancy compensators and testing of cylinders to your total cost.
Shops
Here are some of the dive shops you are likely to come into contact with:
- Croxley Divers, 125 New Road, Croxley Green, 01923 777700
- DIVE IN, Gildenburgh Water, Eastrea Road,Whittlesey Cambridgeshire,: 01733 351288
- Diver's Warehouse - online dive shop
- Kent Diving & Watersports Ltd, Lawson Road, DARTFORD, Kent, DA1 5BP. Telephone: 01322 277107
- Rec-n-Tec, 15 Haseldine Road, London Colney, 01727 827301
- Stoney Cove Dive Shop, Stoney Stanton, Leicestershire, 01455 273089
If you have a reliable URL to any other local shop's web site, tell us and we'll use it.
Manufacturers
To give you an idea about what's on offer:
- APValves Stabs and rebreathers
- Apeks Regulators
- Aqua Lung Regulators, gauges and other diving stuff
- Dacor Regulators
- DUI Suits
- Gul Suits
- Ikelite Cameras
- Luxfer Cylinders
- Oceanic Regulators and gauges
- Polar Bears Suits
- Poseidon Regulators
- ScubaPro Regulators, gauges and other diving stuff
- Suunto Computers
- U.S. Divers General diving stuff
- Uwatec Computers
This is just a sample, there are many other manufacturers.