BOC Hobby Weld price increase effective January 2020

[Hood]

Either SGS has gone up a lot or your agent is milking it. It has been a few years since I used SGS but for a 30l cylinder I was around £100 for pure Argon and approx the same for the initial rental. BTW you get the full rental back from SGS or at least you did.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I use Barnet welding just north of London.

20l pure argon is £65 for gas and £80 bottle deposit rent free.

For the amounts of gas I use it's not worth doing cylinder rentals I think.

 

[Seadog]

I thought at least they'd be in Barnet, not 50 miles up the road

 

[Mark 2]

London gases anyone?

 

[ukracer]

Just had 2 call backs from BOC.

The woman tried to justify the 25% increase by "everything is going up", and then started talking about her train ticket...

Left me feeling even more sure that leaving was a good plan.

Who are the rent free suppliers that i should be looking up? : )

Did you explain to her that Public sector workers are getting a pay freeze? So where they get their 25% extra from I just don't know.

 

[Gazz292]

Either SGS has gone up a lot or your agent is milking it. It has been a few years since I used SGS but for a 30l cylinder I was around £100 for pure Argon and approx the same for the initial rental. BTW you get the full rental back from SGS or at least you did.

I find it annoying that some of the gas companies that supply all over the country via distributors usually say 'contact your local dealer for prices, as they all charge differently'

i seem to have found that only rentfreegas publish the prices on their main site.

due to SGS not publishing guide prices, or even bottle dimensions (that i could find) when i found a distributor with prices listed online, it made me think that sgs are stupidly expensive, so i simple figured they are far too expensive for me, and didn't bother looking anymore at their products (it's 'york motor factors' that lists SGS prices.. at what i now believe are silly prices)

 

[Hood]

Here is a pic of the price list I have, it is 4 years out of date (time flies) but surely it hasn't gone up that much since then.

 

[Gazz292]

now those prices i'd happily pay... oh, i bet they are plus vat tho

i got it wrong on my other post, york motor factors price included vat (everyone else's is plus vat) so it's 'only' £122.50 for the gas, plus £122.40 for the deposit, for the 20 litre bottle. so £244.90 to get a bottle from them... i know the deposit is refundable, but i wouldn't be giving up the bottle for years if ever,
so it'd still be half the cost of the welder for a bottle of gas, which i expect to use up fairly fast, right before xmas... not gonna happen.

I have noticed that there is the £20 cashback for forum members for the first bottle of SGS gas, so if i can get a 20 litre bottle for nearer £150 total,

then adding the 20 quid cashback would make SGS the cheapest... barring a 250 mile round trip, 30 quids worth of fuel, to pay £210 for a 50 litre bottle with deposit

 

[heldtogetherwithblutack]

Where i live i've got boc, hobbyweld, sgs or rentfreegas to choose from it seems,

hobbyweld :
9 litre, 135 bar, £60 deposit, £60 gas.
20 litre, 230 bar, £110 deposit, £132 gas.... and they keep at least £20 of the deposit.

SGS:
10 litre 200 bar, £84 -100 deposit, £79 - 122 gas... depends on which distributor, nearest to me is the expensive one.. of course.
20 litre, 200 bar, £122 deposit, £146 gas.... not found out how much deposit you get back.

rentfreegas:
10 litre, 200 bar, £55 deposit, £69 gas.
20 litre, 200 bar, £80 deposit, £102 gas.... 100% of deposit returned.


Now if i wanted to take a 300 mile round trip, i could go to chorley gas, in lancashire, and pay:
10 litre, 200 bar, £50 deposit, £40 gas.
20 litre, 200 bar, £50 deposit, £70 gas.
30 litre, 200 bar, £100 deposit, £90 gas.
50 litre, 200 bar, £100 deposit, £110 gas. full deposit refund any time.

just can't believe how much the prices vary around the country.

oh yeah, there's always the place in Doncaster that fills your own bottles, but they only fill to 100 bar, and its £25 for 10 litres of argon:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/193770766423?
And when you works out the amount of gas at 100 bar, it's not that good a deal i don't think.

Just to put some perspective to this, using the above 10L GAS(only) prices

eBay Doncaster 2.5p/L NO DEPOSIT NO RENTAL

Hobby (9 Litre) 4.94p/L + Deposit etc...
SGS (avg £100) 5.00p/L + Deposit etc...
rfg 3.45p/L + Deposit etc...
Chorley 2.00p/L + Deposit etc...

Doncaster prices look pretty attractive to me for Argon, however, for the mig, I'll stick with 6.35/10L CO2 for £30 which works out at just under a penny a Litre, 0.85p/L

 

[Gazz292]

ahh, is that including the price of buying your own bottle that you get re-filled at doncaster? tho they say they fill pub style co2 cylinders, so i guess one of them can be had cheaply... but it needs to be in date and all that,
i know you will get half the gas too as they only fill to 100 bar, as opposed to 200 bar for other places (except hobbywelds 9 litre bottle)

this gas lark is hurting my brain

 

[Gritineye]

Just dumped BOC as my predicted usage has become so low, now using SGS from a local motor factor, 20 ltr 5% CO2/Argon mix £59.60, fully returnable deposit £85 all plus vat.

The bottle has a nice valve wheel, no need for a key now, much better!

Not sure trade account holders get it for less.

 

[Hood]

Just to put some perspective to this, using the above 10L GAS(only) prices

eBay Doncaster 2.5p/L NO DEPOSIT NO RENTAL

Hobby (9 Litre) 4.94p/L + Deposit etc...
SGS (avg £100) 5.00p/L + Deposit etc...
rfg 3.45p/L + Deposit etc...
Chorley 2.00p/L + Deposit etc...

Doncaster prices look pretty attractive to me for Argon, however, for the mig, I'll stick with 6.35/10L CO2 for £30 which works out at just under a penny a Litre, 0.85p/L

Are you taking into account the fill pressure?
That can make a big difference, for example I use the BOC E33 cylinders now and they are 33l@300bar so 9.99m³ where the SGS 30l@200bar or 6m³ so 1/3 less gas.
BOC works out way cheaper for me even with the rental as I use a fair few cylinders in a year.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I'm pretty sure my place just swaps out empties for full...what's good is they let you move to a different size if needed by paying/repaying the difference in deposit. Worth checking how flexible they are I think.

 

[Hood]

I'm pretty sure my place just swaps out empties for full...what's good is they let you move to a different size if needed by paying/repaying the difference in deposit. Worth checking how flexible they are I think.

Aye, when I was using SGS I just took the empty and swapped it for a full. Always had the 30l so not sure what they would have done if I had gone from 20-30 but think it would have just been pay the deposit difference.

 

[Gazz292]

Found what i think is the latest SGS gas price list,

 

[Hood]

That is more like it
Still way more expensive than BOC is for me but for low users it is a decent price.

 

[Gazz292]

So, from SGS i'm looking at £196 for a 20 litre pure argon, or £176 with the £20 cashback on the first bottle... that's assuming i can find a place local selling at those prices.

Really thinking about that trip to chorley gas tho, as i'd get a 30 litre bottle for £190 from them, or spend 20 quid more and get 50 litres,
Or spend just £120 and get 20 litres.... but with the 5 hour trip for a refill when i run it empty.

 

[Hood]

No way would I be doing a 5hr trip to get gas but then again my time costs and I hate driving Bad enough doing the 30 mile round trip to pick up mine, so much so I try and work things out so that I can get both the E33's in the same trip.
It is actually more cost effective for me to take an empty and an almost empty cylinder back because the gas is relatively cheap and I only pay one collection charge. Taking one back one day and another a few days later wastes 1 1/2hrs plus I get two collection charges.

 

[Gazz292]

Well, thing is, chorley is a ~20 mile detour off the normal route i take to go over to see my Gf who lives in Chester,
Only i haven't been allowed over there for months due to the damn covid thing (last lockdown i was told to isolate till august due to some pills im on)

Then before this latest lockdown chester was a higher tier to where i live, so i wasn't allowed to stay the night with her... so a day trip to see her was something we couldn't really justify....

But if i can get a bottle of gas for the tig at the same time.... hmm, i'd better not word it like that really when i tell her i'm thinking of popping over to see her for the day

 

[Tangledfeet]

Do SGS gas bottles have the same side entry (and same size..?) that BOC bottles have..? Seeing as I have two-stage regs with pea shooter flow gauges on both it would be (yet another) consideration.