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Second homeowners and locals alike are tapping into home oxygen systems

The Mile High Training oxygen system uses special technology to seperate oxygen from mountain air and concentrate it into specific areas of the home.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

During the winter months, Southern California-based NASA aerospace engineer Frank Tai and his wife get their mountain-town fix through their condo in Breckenridge. 

For years the fix came with a cost: a day or two of debilitating altitude sickness. Tai said the pair made it a point to spend the first night of their visits to Colorado in Denver to mitigate symptoms. Even so, once they got up to Breckenridge his wife would suffer through adjusting to the stark jump in elevation nearly every time.

 “She’d be in bed for two days,” he said. 



During a trip to visit a friend in Telluride, Tai was introduced to the concept of pumping oxygen into private residences to mitigate effects from altitude.

He was interested in learning more and wondered if one of these systems could help his wife, but wasn’t overly hopeful about the possibility of installing one in a condo versus a multi-room home. Still, he shopped around and came across Mile High Training, who ended up making it happen. 



Founder of Mile High Training Matt Formato said the machines he installs in homes like Tai’s take air from outside, separate the nitrogen and oxygen, discard the nitrogen and pump the oxygen into an area to “offset” the altitude. 

Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News
This home in Breckenridge uses the Mile High Training oxygen system to concentrate oxygen in living spaces, allowing residents to avoid complications caused by thinner air at high elevations.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

Through changing the percentage of oxygen in a room, the system simulates a lower altitude. Someone in the room would feel as though they were thousands of feet lower in elevation than they actually are. 

Tai said the 9,600 foot hike in elevation no longer has the impacts it used to and Mile High’s system transformed how he and his wife were able to spend their first couple days in Breckenridge — involving much less couch time. 

“Now we can just fly in and drive straight to our place,” he said.


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Formato said there are cases cases, like Tai’s, where his company installs one machine for one room in a home, and there’s cases where people want numerous rooms, particularly guest rooms, to be altitude-simulated. He said numerous rooms can be oxygen enriched through a centralized control system. Mile High’s systems, including services such as installation and room ventilation, start at $30,000 and can get up to several hundred thousand dollars, Formato said.

While it has recently begun growing in popularity, being put on the radar of many thanks to an October Wall Street Journal feature, pumping oxygen into private residences isn’t new. There have been companies offering these systems in Colorado’s High Country since the mid-1990s. 

Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News
With Breckenridge located at roughly 9,600 feet elevation, the crisp mountain air is thinner than at lower elevations since atmospheric pressure decreases and spreads out the molecules that compose air, resulting in less oxygen molecules in each breath that’s taken into the lungs. Some homeowners invest in systems to increase the concentration of oxygen in their homes to combat the effects of altitude sickness.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

Larry Kutt and Shaun Wallace founded Edwards-based Altitude Control Technology, and created their own oxygen-controlled altitude simulation system, in 1995. Chief operations officer of Glenwood Springs-based Altitude Solutions, Adam Roberts, said his company has been offering oxygen enrichment systems since around 2008 yet it took over a decade for things to pick up.

“When we first started the company, we were doing just a handful of systems a year … a lot of our business was strictly word of mouth, a lot of people hadn’t even heard of this industry before” he said. 

He said the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. The COVID-19 real estate boom — hitting destinations like Breckenridge, Aspen and Telluride— brought more city dwellers not accustomed to altitude to the High Country, he said

“People realized it’s not the easiest thing to go from LA at sea level to 10,000 feet, they learned pretty fast the first weekend with their horrendous (altitude sickness symptoms),” he said. 

He said in addition to an influx of second homeowners in the Rockies, existing second homeowners began to spend more time in their mountain homes. This led to Altitude Control Technologies installing more systems, which start at around $15,000 for a small room, than ever before in mountain towns along the Interstate 70 corridor. 

Florida-based Bo Jones said Summit County has been one of his favorite places in the world ever since he found it decades ago. He said the numerous days it took to acclimate to that altitude upon arrival was worth it. Yet, the prospect of aging inhibiting his ability to acclimate scared him. Fearing he one day would not longer being able to withstand the altitude, he started looking for solutions and found Mile High. 

He said not only does he sleep better, but he can reassure his guests they won’t have to spend the first few days of their trip battling symptoms of altitude sickness.

Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News
A oxygen-enriching machine and its control system is pictured in a luxury home’s garage on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. The system includes a touch screen that shows data from various rooms and allows the user to monitor and control the system.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

While there’s interest in the industry in the second homeowner market, it doesn’t end there.

When the current owners of Altitude Control Technology, Kyle Bassett and Bill Sinclair, first bought the company in 2021, their client base ended up looking different than what they had originally anticipated, Bassett said.

“We learned that it wasn’t just the weekend crowd that struggled, but also many locals struggled to sleep, as well as (people with) many types of cardio pulmonary issues that are easier to deal with at sea level,” Bassett said via email.

Formato said he also finds longtime High Country locals in his client base. 

“As we age, especially at altitude, we lose that blood oxygen level,” Formato said. “So for folks who maybe never really had altitude issues, those might start to get them in their 40s or 50s.”

A nightstand rests next to a sensor for the oxygen system, which looks similar to a typical outlet, allowing it to blend into the natural aesthetics of a room.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

As Bobby Cotton was preparing to become Breckenridge-based full-time, he drove by and saw Altitude Solutions putting a system into his neighbor’s home.

“I actually wasn’t having any problems with altitude at all, but knowing that this technology might help me moving into a higher elevation, I figured it would be worth it looking into,” he said. “I’ve been here almost eight years now, and my physician wants to know how my lungs are becoming better.”

While these systems are working their way into the mainstream, there’s still new enough to not be considered in many municipality’s building and development codes, Roberts said. He said while companies installing these systems into existing and new construction, they only are bound to adhering to regulation such as fire codes. He added, at this time, there’s not many places which mandate inspection of these systems.

Roberts said ensuring safety largely falls on providers, yet it is safer than some think.

“A lot of people think oxygen can be on the dangerous side,” he said. “What they don’t realize is oxygen is a non-flammable gas, it does not burn.”

He said it’s part of the fire triangle, it can be an oxidizer and cause flammable material to burn at a stronger rate, but it won’t start a fire on its own.

This story originally published in the December/January edition of Summit County Home.

A vent near the garage allows air from the outside to pour into the oxygen system of the home, allowing it to blend into the property’s aesthetics.
Andrew Maciejewski/Summit Daily News

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