Buy New, Buy Used, or rent?
The best value for your mine safety equipment
As a mine safety professional, you need to balance efficiency and cost while prioritizing worker safety. But what gets you the most value for your mine safety equipment?
Buying new equipment makes sense if you want to invest in something your company uses long-term and on a regular basis. In other cases, pre-owned equipment delivers more bang for your buck.
Many companies choose to rent equipment before they decide to purchase. If you end up needing the equipment on a long-term basis, it’s easy enough to buy a used unit for a more affordable price.
Flexible equipment rentals
At Draeger, we’ve noticed that most companies will buy used equipment after renting it for some time. To understand the value of used equipment, it’s worth discussing the perks of rentals.
Rentals are the most flexible option to acquire mine safety equipment. You can rent for a specific length of time or just rent indefinitely until your facility’s needs change. At that point, you can swap to a different model, rent an updated version or stop renting entirely.
This level of flexibility comes in handy when the alternative is a hefty one-time investment. A closed-circuit breathing apparatus is but one example of equipment that is much more cost-effective to rent, according to Egland Graham, Service Operations Supervisor at Draeger.
“It’s one of those hidden gems of rental equipment,” he says, referring to Draeger’s PSS® BG 4 model. “It’s an expensive piece of equipment, but it’s usually not something a construction company would need to use long-term.
Rentals allow customers to use the breathing apparatus as needed. It also means the customer has more affordable recourse in the event of theft, broken equipment, or other malfunctions.
Some of the biggest savings are in repair and maintenance. Any rental equipment should be maintained and tested to the manufacturer’s specifications by an approved service provider.
“Customers rent it, they use it, and that’s it,” says Graham. “They don’t have to worry about any maintenance or repair costs.”
Depending on the rental term, Draeger service technicians arrange maintenance at regular intervals to ensure equipment stays in working order. Any faulty or failing equipment can easily be swapped out for a newer unit.
The most popular rentals from Draeger are portable gas detectors — particularly the X-am® 5000 and the X-am®8000. Since different models detect different types of gases and vapours, renting makes it easy to change sensors when the facility needs to handle different chemicals.
Again, if your facility establishes a long-term need for equipment you’ve been renting, you can always buy it at a reduced price.
Try before you buy
Renting gives you a good opportunity to use equipment without any commitment. Some companies will own a few units and rent ten more, shifting equipment between job sites as needed throughout the year.
Brandon Beringer, National Sales Manager at Draeger, says many companies appreciate the flexibility and get the best value when they buy used equipment at the end of a rental period.
“Let’s say you want a Mercedes, and I let you rent one for a dollar a day. Does that devalue the Mercedes?” Beringer explains. “You grab that opportunity to rent it for a buck a day, but you don’t feel that it’s worth less at the end of the rental period.”
Customers tend to extend that mentality to their mine safety equipment. When the time comes to buy, they also know need to know it’s safe to operate and integrates well with their existing electronics and other gear.
“At Draeger, everything is intrinsically safe and meets all industry standards, so it can be taken into any environment and not cause any issues,” Beringer says.
Explore your purchasing options
Because Draeger rents out almost every piece of mine safety equipment from their diverse catalogue, customers have plenty of options to try before they buy. Contact a representative to discuss what works best for your particular operation
Leave a Reply