Price Quote: Dry Ice Blasting

[Amgine]

The boat is on the hard in British Columbia, the bottom paint is flaking in some spots, so it's all going to come off. I decided to see if I could get some quotes on having it done.

So far only one service provider has gotten back to me about dry ice blasting. For a boat with an 18' waterline, 3' draft, semi-full keel bottom: $2000 Canadian. Included in the service is containment and disposal. The job would be completed in a single day.

[hummingway]

That seems expensive. Does it include haul out?

[Amgine]

One of the problems is I don't know if it's expensive or not: no one seems to post how much they've paid to have their bottom removed. It's perfectly reasonable for service providers to want to avoid making general quotes in public, but it makes it very difficult to evaluate if a service is fairly priced or gouging.

My opinion is this price - which does not include haulout, blocking, or yard fees - is too high. In part it's because the set-up costs for containment don't get any cheaper just because the boat is small; the service provider would really rather do a bigger boat. But even taking that into account it's too damn high, more than $100 per waterline foot. My guess is the provider doesn't want to be bothered by a small boat and jacked the price to make me pass.

Which is fine. I'd just rather the provider had been more honest and said up front the boat was too small.

[sww914]

Or it could be what you've already said, that a large portion of his fixed costs apply to every boat regardless of size and he just can't afford to do it cheaper. Why do you want it dry ice blasted rather than chemically stripped? I don't know anything about the advantages or disadvantages so I'm curious.

[Target9000]

Our boat needs to have 10-15 years worth of bottom paint taken off along with extensive blister repair. The yard quote here was $3000(US) for sanding, filling, fairing, and painting. I'd say your quote is high. I imagine the quote we got has many more man hours of labor in it than yours does. Also the yard we're at isn't charging for haul out or storage.

We're also a long long way from you geographically, but I thought I'd chime in for a frame of reference.

[Amgine]

Originally Posted by sww914

Or it could be what you've already said, that a large portion of his fixed costs apply to every boat regardless of size and he just can't afford to do it cheaper. Why do you want it dry ice blasted rather than chemically stripped? I don't know anything about the advantages or disadvantages so I'm curious.

Mostly I would just like someone else to do the nasty stripping work.

But I am intrigued by the claims being made for dry ice blasting. It is rumored to be much less clean up, less harsh to the gelcoat, faster/better at bottom paint stripping (due to temperature differential weakening paint bonding), and require less post-removal surface preparation. What I don't have is any hard evidence for any of these claims.

But at this quoted price I do not think I will be getting evidence this summer; more likely I will be purchasing my own enviro-suit and breather, building my own containment tent, and stripping the paint myself. I have a half-dozen other requests for quotes out still, including soda blasting, but I too think much of the costs are the fixed ones for containment and disposal which are much cheaper if I do it myself.

[Jim Cate]

G'Day all,

It's always a crappy job!

Some years ago I hand scraped 17 years worth of hard anti-foul off Insatiable One's bottom. 29' LWL, fin keel, 12' beam. Used a 1 1/4" wide carbide scraper, took me 50 hours of nasty hard work. If one did it this way I should think no screening would be required, and putting tarps down under the boat would make cleanup fairly easy.

I would think that on your much smaller boat it would be a feasible means of getting the stuff off... feasible, but not fun... not fun but saving 2 grand.

Good luck with it.

Cheers,

Jim