I'm curious: Is UL inspection mandated by some government rule? To the best of my knowledge UL is a private entity and has no power to force anything on anybody.
OSHA
- Thread starter ric_in_or
- Start date
I'm curious: Is UL inspection mandated by some government rule? To the best of my knowledge UL is a private entity and has no power to force anything on anybody.
wheelgun28
Member
UL ratings are often an insurance company requirement.
UL can be a pain to deal with and expensive to get an approval.
As far as I know getting a UL approval is voluntary but some places will not buy products with out one.
UL can be a pain to deal with and expensive to get an approval.
As far as I know getting a UL approval is voluntary but some places will not buy products with out one.
bluegrassarms
Member
Just for information only..
24 lane basic range rated for up to .375 H&H..EQUIPMENT ONLY>>>>Stalls , Trollies.. Backstop, and ONE Master installer
Current cost
$525,000.00 + Labor to install+ assorted Odds and Ends
+ separate UL inspection ONLY ( $4500.00 ) as the range equipment is NOT UL rated.. and if the local building code requires it must be brought up to code and then UL approved ... add another $40,000.00
Correct approved ventilation
EQUIPMENT ONLY>>>>>>> $125,000 Delivered to your door.. Installation is your problem..
This does NOT include the building
Oh wait.. you want air conditioning??
Add $325,000.00.. and all that is, are individual " Vents above the shooters station.."
Remember a range ventilation system is NOT an enclosed system.. It is a Fresh Air in and Mega filtered air out.. THAT MUST MEET ALL STANDARDS..
Oh Yeah.. " Lead-away" mats at the exit doors and " Lead Away Soap" in the rest rooms @ $20.00 a gallon..
I have a headache..
This is the neighborhood of the numbers I ran. Even cut out the OSHA stuff, even the UL inspections and it's a huge sum of money.
Maybe you can get out cheaper on things like the A/C by going DIY rather than gun range specific vendors, but it's still a ton of money.
Say you can get out on the A/C for say $50K, a VERY low number for the square footage. That doesn't include the electric bill to cool it or vent it. As I understand it you have to replace with outside air so in 100 degree heat it's either going be dang warm or a big bill.
Nipster -- Do you know their numbers? Ever since I researched this I've been curious how they can line up for these places to operate.
Even if we whack the above numbers to death, and I DO NOT doubt his numbers one bit, but assuming we do a redneck DIY (a process with which I'm very familiar lol) it's still a ton of money.
I know the nice steel plate backstops were $1,700 per linear foot. A lane is say 5' wide, 10 lanes is $85K for the backstop alone. I think that's in the $525K figure above. Add in the booths, etc. and I can see it get to $250K even if you were on the cheap and being uber optimistic.
So $250K for equipment/hardware, Vent equipment $125K (can't imagine you can do much better than that), "2 guys and a 6 pack construction) does your A/C for $50K and or so and you're in the $400-$500K range not counting the building in just your initial investment. Then of course you have the operating costs.
I ran the numbers. 1 person in the lanes at all times as a range master (many don't have one I know), at least one store front clerk, electric to heat and cool the square footage plus a multiplier for it being vented to the outside with such high air turnover.
I was told that Buds' had $750K in theirs and I'm all but sure that didn't include the building. An industrial property that size costs a heck of a lot more than that.
That $750K number is well below the above numbers, which I've seen elsewhere and IMO are accurate if you go to one of the specialized vendors and do it 100% right. so there's no way it was less than that.
Now add in the land cost and look at your net after you pay the electric and labor every month and I end up with the conclusion that it would be a better investment to have bought the building and leased it as warehouse space. The payback is just way too long term to make it a good investment versus other options if you've got $750K sitting around.
Of course one reason gun shops do it is to drive business, and that makes sense, but again you have to drive a lot of business that is due to the gun range to make it work. Buds has a big operation, and does LEO stuff in their range, so I'm not saying theirs is a bad investment. It could be a great one. I'm just saying that in most cases I don't see a range being a sound investment versus other options.
Nipster, would love to know their numbers. Either I'm missing something big somewhere or people are building these things and not making a very good return on investment. They may not be losing money but I don't see how the payback works versus investing in commercial real estate or any other number of investments.
One final note - NRA does provide grants to build ranges. They have particular requirements about clubs trying to build one, but obviously someone offsetting a bunch of costs and bringing their range expertise to bear can change that decision quickly.
wheelgun28
Member
Realize that this quote is for a range rated to .375 H&H, that is a HUGH caliber for a indoor range. I am sure that this adds to the cost, by how much I dont know. Most ranges here are pistol calibers only some allow .223 with frangible. A local club is handgun only 1200fps max...
Another expense is the air filters, they get changed regularly and you just cant toss the old ones in the trash. Dont forget the backstop needs maintenance and repair. The target carriers break or get shot and on and on.
Folks complain about $20 an hour to use the place while they shoot the walls floor ceiling and lights...
Another expense is the air filters, they get changed regularly and you just cant toss the old ones in the trash. Dont forget the backstop needs maintenance and repair. The target carriers break or get shot and on and on.
Folks complain about $20 an hour to use the place while they shoot the walls floor ceiling and lights...
Just for information only..
24 lane basic range rated for up to .375 H&H..EQUIPMENT ONLY>>>>Stalls , Trollies.. Backstop, and ONE Master installer
Current cost
$525,000.00 + Labor to install+ assorted Odds and Ends
+ separate UL inspection ONLY ( $4500.00 ) as the range equipment is NOT UL rated.. and if the local building code requires it must be brought up to code and then UL approved ... add another $40,000.00
Correct approved ventilation
EQUIPMENT ONLY>>>>>>> $125,000 Delivered to your door.. Installation is your problem..
This does NOT include the building
Oh wait.. you want air conditioning??
Add $325,000.00.. and all that is, are individual " Vents above the shooters station.."
Remember a range ventilation system is NOT an enclosed system.. It is a Fresh Air in and Mega filtered air out.. THAT MUST MEET ALL STANDARDS..
Oh Yeah.. " Lead-away" mats at the exit doors and " Lead Away Soap" in the rest rooms @ $20.00 a gallon..
I have a headache..
McBear
Member
I did make it easy for you. You just provided my argument. Thanks.You're making this too easy for me, McBear
Utilities are among the most heavily government regulated businesses I can think of, and therefore are an example of the kind of government interference you seem to favor, not of a free market, so you are actually reinforcing my argument.
Of course customers don't have any control over electric companies, for example. Those companies have been granted monopolies by government and if anybody tries to compete with them they will be shut down. Open up the market by removing these monopoly grants and competition would give us the best service at the lowest possible price. Consumers would be in control then because if they didn't like the price or service they were getting they could find another supplier. There is no reason why free competition can't work with these "long thin things," as economist Walter Block calls them. Look how much cheaper long-distance rates are now that we have freer competition. Wouldn't you agree that consumers are pretty much in control there now?
Whose property rights would government be protecting in a secondary or tertiary manufacturing process? Who is the liable corporation?
Earlier you said "In a free market, there are always controls on business, but they are imposed by customers voting with their pocketbooks, so they are much more effective. Ticked-off consumers with big mouths can send a company sliding toward bankruptcy in the blink of an eye." Now you say "who cares if they have a say?".
Which is it?
It is a very clear argument...Parlor theory is one thing...but practical application of that theory is something else entirely. Folks spout libertarianism as if it was real, rather than a parlor theory. And that is why you can't provide an example of a successful first world country which utilizes it.
It's mandated by the local permitting and electrical.. entity..when submitting plans for approval..
BUT not in every locality.. so the MFG.'s are not required to provide UL listing.. but the " Operator" is.. if required locally/..
What on earth does that mean? You have completely ignored the issue of whether electric companies are free-market entities and instead said, in essence, "I'm right and you're wrong. Get over it." I'm surprised you didn't use the tired old internet forum cliche "Thanks for playing!"
It would be the property rights of whoever had his stream polluted, his well poisoned, or whatever. It doesn't matter what the product was, or how much business-to-business trade was involved in its manufacture. All that counts when somebody's property has been damaged is who damaged it and what the offender must do to fix it. The same investigative methods that are routinely used to identify guilty parties would be employed on behalf of the person or persons whose property was harmed. Pretty simple.
Preemptive regulation, on the other hand, doesn't address real harm done by real perpetrators to real victims; it strives instead to head off that harm by imagining every conceivable scenario under which harm might be done. Sounds good but doesn't work.
If you believe in this stuff, then you have to agree that making laws against owning guns is the way to keep criminals from hurting people with guns. I hope most on this forum recognize how silly and unworkable that is, and how it actually penalizes the innocent while doing nothing to deter the bad guys. Same with any preemptive regulation: Law-abiding people who would not have done any harm in the first place obey the regulations and suffer the costs (which, if they're in business, they have to pass on to consumers). People who intend to do harm simply ignore the regs.
Regulators hate the sensible "No harm no foul" rule because it shows us how little we need them.
I said "in this 77% of trade, who cares if they have a say?" I'm talking about the business-to-business transactions that are always at work in an advanced economy. That's the big non-retail part that you brought up.
If I find a seller of flashlights online, and I decide his $50 light is a good deal, I might buy it. If it turns out to be a piece of junk that doesn't live up to the seller's claims, I and other suckers who bought from him will tell everybody we know what a ripoff artist he is, and his business selling flashlights will be doomed. It doesn't matter that I didn't have anything to say about the flashlight guy's purchase of a new CNC turning center from Haas Automation, a used injection molding machine he found on machinetools.com, or the bulbs, batteries and springs he bought from who-knows-where. None of that concerns me one bit, and it shouldn't. The only thing that counts is that a bunch of us consumers got taken to the cleaners by the final seller of the product, and we have the power to put him out of business pronto. We are judge, jury and executioner, and no seller with any sense will risk making us mad.
So you think gun control forced on us by government is fine and dandy then, correct? My argument, which, again, you have ignored, is that finding "an example of a successful first world country which utilizes" one principle or another is not a valid requirement for believing in that principle or striving for its implementation. Governments hate individual liberty. All countries that you and I would consider "successful" have pretty significant gun control as far as I know. Your reasoning holds up that fact as proof that strict government gun control is the way to go. Is that what you believe? What is it about leaving people alone as long as they're not hurting anybody that you dislike so much?
McBear
Member
See. Thanks for playing.
You seem to be arguing both sides of the need for regulations. And no, I don't have to believe the false equivalence argument regarding guns.
You do know this conversation was about consumer control of business vs regulations controlling business, not consumers and quality of merchandise, don't you?
In one clumsy paragraph you tried to put words in my mouth three times. It doesn't work...
But you made my point, once again that you want so much for libertarian principles to work on a large scale but are unwilling to accept that they don't scale to a large government level, hence the reason you cannot find an example of a functioning government with them. The reason...libertarian principles are PERSONAL principles. You live them for yourself. But that doesn't divorce you from your community obligations. A quick read of the original Libertarian Manifesto, published back in the early 1970s, when this first began should clear it up.
We're wandering too far off topic. I'm done.
Last edited:
Boy, I thought he'd never leave. Okay, orderly thinkers who know how to read: you can come out now.
Similar threads
