Took Okie's suggestion to look at fb marketplace for machines. They're averaging about $200-300 less than the craigslist postings for the same models. (Resmed 10 Autoset on fb is about $400-500) I went through and bookmarked ones that seemed like a good price (ie: not super high compared with all the rest). Made sure they were all Autoset machines (my prescription is for APAP) and that they had humidifiers. Noticed one that was being sold with a Soclean machine, and felt like I'd read something about those being bad, so I ran a check for "Soclean" here in the forums and confirmed that I didn't want anything that had been cleaned with one.
I ended up with a short list of questions that I sent to several sellers, after confirming from the photos/descriptions that they come with all the right parts. Key questions were:
What have you used to clean it?
Is it from a non-smoking residence?
Do you know how many hours of run time it has currently?
I've gotten responses from 2 sellers, one of them local. The local one has only used the machine about 50 hours, as they apparently needed something different. The only thing it needs and doesn't come with is a mask, which makes sense, and I'm thinking of going with that one, for $400.
Does that sound like a reasonable price? Is there anything else I should be asking?
I think I'd like to try out some things from your box o' masks, Pugsy. How do I go about that?You can still use the supplier for masks if you wish or maybe I might have something you could work with and it not cost you anything. I have a "donations" box where people might try a mask and it not work...so they send it to me and I find a new home for it. These are totally free.
I also have a small selection of masks that I purchased that I can sell well below retail price.
But I usually tell people to use their insurance if they can and/or maybe try something from the donations box at least until they figure out what the like before they go buying anything on their own.