Are you planning to set up a home gym? Does your homeowner’s community center want to add a self-service fitness center? Our local clubhouse (provided by the HoA) is considering outfitting a small, do it yourself gym area that only the homeowners can use for a nominal fee. I sent in a few suggestions and I wanted to share a few with you. You can save yourself a lot of money by keeping an eye out for refurbished equipment.
Why Refurbished Equipment?
Commercial equipment is far sturdier than your standard home gym equipment. Why? Commercial equipment is designed to be used by dozens of people every day, 24 hours a day. Commercial quality equipment is durable, longer lasting and may ultimately prove to be a better investment if it is refurbished. Refurbished commercial equipment takes used commercial pieces (not just cardio equipment, but also weight training equipment and more) and freshen it up.
Global Fitness, Fitness Equipment Depot, Kacor Inc and more are companies that specialize in picking up old equipment from health clubs (these could be machines that are just out of date or being replaced by newer models) and refurbish that equipment for resale.
What Does It Mean to Refurbish?
When a piece of equipment is refurbished, the company takes that piece of equipment apart and puts it back together while cleaning it, testing it and tuning it up. The pieces are each tested to ensure performance and to make it as close to ‘new’ as they can.
Now, when investigating refurbished equipment, you should keep in mind that there are different levels to refurbishing: remanufactured, serviced and refurbished. The first provides the longest warranty because it’s likely had the most warn parts replaced, the second has the shortest warranty because it was just tuned while the last splits the difference.
Refurbished equipment might just be the best investment for non-commercial fitness ventures whether it’s you and your neighbor outfitting a garage gym or the local homeowner’s community center building one as well. Consider it in the frugal option category.