environment magazine

The devil made me buy it! Reasons for Renting

By Alan Hasson, General Manager, Ashtead Technology Ltd

Imagine the situation. You are standing in the power tools section of your local DIY store gazing longingly at the dazzling array of equipment with which you could transform your home into something worthy of an Ideal Homes exhibit.

Your attention is caught by a particularly attractive offer: 12" Dual Bevel Compound Miter Saw (with laser tracking!) for £300 - seems like a really good deal!

A little devil on one shoulder says “Go on! No more messy edges. Wouldn’t that be great!” but the angel on the other shoulder says “hang on, there's a recession on you know. How often are you actually going to use that saw? Can you really afford to spend the cash? And where will you keep it? If you really need a miter saw, why don’t you just hire one?”

Luckily, your partner arrives and you don’t have to make a decision, but the dilemma that you faced is one that many of us have to deal with in our everyday working lives. For the miter saw - see a gas emissions monitor; a dust meter; a noise meter; a water quality monitor; an infrared camera or an industrial borescope.  For the angel - see your boss.  For the little devil - see yourself, and for your partner … see the Finance Director!

Most of us prefer to buy equipment when we need it and only consider renting when we need to try something before committing capital expenditure. However, there are many drawbacks to equipment purchase, and in this article Alan Hasson, General Manager of Ashtead Technology’s UK Instrument Division, will describe the main benefits of renting by exploring the many circumstances under which new instrumentation becomes a requirement.

Non-frequent use

Let us suppose that you want to carry out an energy efficiency survey and a maintenance check on key machinery using thermography. Infrared cameras can be used within industry to inspect, maintain and optimise equipment by scanning and visualising the temperature distribution of machinery and electrical equipment quickly and accurately. Because equipment usually gets hot before it fails, engineers are easily able to locate problems or identify ‘hotspots’ and avoid any costly operational failures, downtime or health and safety hazards. In addition, energy efficiency is vitally important to lower costs and reduce carbon footprint, so infrared cameras are also useful for identifying poor insulation and energy loss.

In a recent BBC programme 'DIY SOS', a FLIR infrared camera was employed to illustrate the effects of improved insulation – the images below show the before and after images (the white, red and yellow parts of the 'before' image indicate areas of poor insulation).

It might be necessary to conduct infrequent surveys for both energy efficiency and predictive maintenance purposes. However, if you and your colleagues can find use for this equipment every week, it might make more sense to buy the instrument. So, this simple example demonstrates that the decision to rent is often dictated by the frequency of intended use. However, there are a number of other advantages to renting.

Fast Replacement

Suppose the infrared camera breaks down, you spend a couple of hours trying to fix it, give up and then try and convince the manufacturer that it should be replaced under warranty. Rental companies such as Ashtead Technology provide trained engineers that can assist in troubleshooting equipment at any time or arrange for a replacement unit to be dispatched immediately.

If a rented instrument malfunctions, it is replaced quickly because the rental company is anxious that the instrument performs to specification, so that the rental fee is valid and so that you might rent it again.

Clean and good to go

Infrared cameras are usually kept in good condition, however if your instrument is a water quality monitor and, for one reason or another, it was not cleaned adequately at the end of its last use, you might find that time is wasted servicing and calibrating the instrument when you next need to use it. Rented equipment is always delivered clean, checked (calibrated if necessary) and ready for use, and if you had rented a water quality monitor it would have been delivered to site on the prescribed day, at the right time.

Let us also suppose that a colleague in a different department heard that you had your own equipment, and asked if he could borrow it for use on a site in another part of the country. Will he look after it properly and return it in its original condition? And will he return it when he said he would?

Latest technology

In the following year, your colleague calls again, and asks if you can bring your (purchased) infrared camera to an important site where they have a specific maintenance issue. However, when you get there you discover that the job requires a camera with a greater temperature range. So, your colleague rents the latest thermal camera and you are frustrated to discover that imager technology has moved on since you made your purchase and the rented model is much easier to use.

You would love to have the new model, but having purchased the (now) older model, you are stuck with it, unless you can find a way to dispose of it. However, it did cost a large amount of money, and might be of use one day, so you keep it, and lock it up in a storage area (even though your company is still paying the depreciation costs).

In all of these scenarios, you would wish that you had rented rather than purchased your instrument (or miter saw!)

Choosing the right instrument

There are simple applications for which it is only necessary to identify cold or hot spots, so an entry-level device is the most cost-effective. However, professional thermographers require greater detail, resolutions and features such as the facility to take visual images and to record audio notes with the same instrument – mid-level instruments are therefore necessary.

At the top-end of the market, the most advanced thermal cameras offer incredible levels of resolution across a wide temperature range which is important in applications such as research.

Each time you rent a thermal camera, or indeed any other equipment, you have the opportunity to choose the model that suits your application.

The next time you need a camera, you would be able to rent the latest, higher quality model, and at the end of each renting period you simply return the instrument, so you have no storage or disposal problems.

The Financial Case

The strongest case for renting is of course financial. Credit is in short supply and pressure has mounted on capital expenditure budgets which has heightened the need for equipment hire.

A further financial reason for renting is the cost of depreciation – equipment is often written down over 3 years, sometimes less, which can have a significant effect on the bottom line.

Some customers have a frequent requirement for instrumentation so some rental companies offer preferential financial schemes. For example, Ashtead Technology offers a Perpetual Rental Program (PRP) at a fraction of the standard rental rate. Ashtead’s PRP combines the convenience of ownership with all the benefits of renting such as maintenance, annual calibration and repairs.

Alternatively, the company also offers a ‘Rent To Own’ (RTO) facility which sidesteps CapEx restrictions to provide immediate access to the most up-to-date equipment with the option to either buy at the end of a 12 months rental period with a one-off purchase payment or to simply return the equipment with no additional penalties. RTO provides an alternative opportunity to own the latest instrumentation without placing major non-operational costs on the balance sheet. This scheme does not replace traditional rental but does provide outright ownership if desired and allows customers to release valuable capital for more pressing requirements.

Calibration and maintenance skills

The case for renting technical instruments is even stronger than it is for other equipment because they often require external calibration, or at the very least skilful maintenance with specialist equipment. It makes sense for this work to be performed by fully equipped and trained technicians.

The expertise of the rental company engineers is also vitally important in helping customers to select the right equipment and secondly, to use it to its best effect. Advice from rental company engineers is particularly valuable because they do not have to promote one manufacturer and can therefore suggest the best equipment for each application.

Summary

The case for renting is stronger if the equipment is expensive to buy, or not destined for frequent use. However, anybody considering instrument purchase should always consider instrument hire, not least for financial reasons.
Some equipment may require skilled calibration and maintenance, coupled with specialist equipment, and the cost for this could be preclusive.

Renting also makes sense for customers that need access to the latest technology, or if they do not wish to bear the cost and inconvenience of maintenance and storage.

So, the next time you find yourself thinking illogically at a hardware store or considering purchasing a piece of equipment for use on your job, remember to listen to the angel on your shoulder!