BOC Hobby Weld price increase effective January 2020

[julianf]

Yep, they sent one a few months back - 20% hike on gas, and admin charge.

You have till the end of the month to return your cylinder.

 

[Shedendman]

Received a updated price list from BOC today. I've called them and am awaiting a call back to confirm if this will hit the 'hobby deal' as well.
From 6th April the price of Argoshield Light is:
£55.49 'Y' refill
£115.60 annual rental
£15.99 customer collection
£1.09 EES surcharge (NI different rates)

I dont think it does,i did call them when the 1st notice came out back last year,rent stayed the same but refill didnt,BUT,if they've changed their tune,they can go forth and multiply,of course will wait till your update from them

 

[KaneH]

Doesn’t the letter state that only the costs associated with delivery are affected (all other prices stay the same)? I think the increase this time round is the £15.99 customer collection charge. They never used to show the hobby deal prices on their standard PDF sheet as I remember having to call them to ask the price when opening an account last year. Think it will likely be the same here

 

[angellonewolf]

im still using pub co2 its fine for the bigger thickness of metal not good if your doing car welding

 

[Dr.Al]

im still using pub co2 its fine for the bigger thickness of metal not good if your doing car welding

Not ideal for TIG welding though!

 

[8ob]

There has always been a bottle handling charge on my BOC account, it is the same whether changing one bottle or a dozen. Makes changing one cylinder a tad dear.

Bob

 

[Dcal]

They waived the charge on the earlier hobby deals.
They are bringing a £6 charge in from January.

I got a 20l bottle of argon light last week.
My account says I owe £46 now so I assume 40 for the gas and 6 for the charge plus vat
I did fill the feed back form in and moaned about it and they gave me a call back which was nice.

£6 on a 20l bottle is significant as what hobby user ever has more than one bottle to leave back, but I can live with £46+ for a fill.

 

[Dr.Al]

I was paying the £5.99+VAT price for collection from when I first signed up (December last year I think), so an increase to £5.99+VAT for collection isn't a price increase for me. What I was concerned about was that the letter they sent me telling me about price rises didn't include any mention of the small weld deal.

Taking the letter at face value, the price changes (for a Y size pure argon bottle) would be:

Rental (excluding VAT): was £48.85, price listed in the letter: £115.60

Cost per bottle (excluding VAT): was £54.79 (including £0.79 surcharge and £5.99 collection fee), price listed in the letter: £96.07 (including £1.09 surcharge and £15.99 collection fee).

That's just Pure Argon Y prices; I didn't bother to look at the other prices on the sheet.

If (as I strongly suspect) the Small Weld Deal prices are much, much lower than those listed in the letter they sent, then all's well (although I *really* don't understand why they sent the letter to me in that case). If the prices really are that high, then the cost per bottle with VAT included becomes £115.28, which doesn't exactly compare favourably to the rent free option for £102.34 per bottle.

 

[Spot the welders dog]

Doesn’t the letter state that only the costs associated with delivery are affected (all other prices stay the same)? I think the increase this time round is the £15.99 customer collection charge. They never used to show the hobby deal prices on their standard PDF sheet as I remember having to call them to ask the price when opening an account last year. Think it will likely be the same here

The covering letter I received only explained the collection charge increase. Like @Dr.Al, I was miffed about the inclusion of the price list which was a jaw-dropping moment!

Well no-one called back, so I pressed the redial!

The figures quoted to me today for a 'Y' argoshield were:
£38.91 refill
£1.09 EES
£52 Annual rent
All the above plus VAT, plus all collections now charged at £15.99

I've had this one bottle for 10 years. Paying for the rental doesn't work out for me so I'll be looking at other options I think.

 

[KaneH]

Another £10 on top of the additional collection charge brought in at the beginning of the year for the joyful trip to collect a bottle

 

[Dcal]

But have they reduced the price of the gas?
The workings of BOC are a complete mystery.

 

[KaneH]

No, gas prices for the hobby deal haven’t changed since the increase we seen at the beginning of the year. This recent communication relates only to the delivery charge increase.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Isn't BOC the standard so if BOC put up their prices all other gas suppliers will soon do the same. I'm still pretty much a novice Tig welder and when I first started I quickly used 3 x 9L low pressure cylinders which were very expensive then opened a BOC account and I'm about to collect my third high pressure "Y" 20L cylinder. This Tig welding is just one of my hobbies; paying over £1,000 for the welder is accepted but gas price rises (delivery/collection) generates lots of discussion. I'll pay the BOC transport costs with good grace because I worked for 24 years in distribution understanding the high costs of running a fleet of wagons. I don't like price rises but look what happens to budget airlines who are competing for business only to face financial ruin. Bron and I are pensioners not having had an holiday away from home for the last 43 years; our priorities are our home and our hobbies; everyone is different with different priorities but I wonder how much argon gas can be bought for a weeks foreign holiday? We never shop around for cheaper electricity or gas either; how can all the suppliers be cheaper than each other; our immediate neighbour complained to npower that her neighbour (me) was using big machinery in his workshop but was paying less electricity bills? We had a visit from npower shortly afterwards. I tried to explain to our neighbour just leaving a light bulb switched on for 24 hours would use the amount of electricity I used on one of my big machines because the machine was switched on and off as required; our neighbour's bungalow is often lit up like a fairground; having fallen out with npower this neighbour then changed supplier only now is paying more. I'd much rather pay a bit extra in order to keep a company I use in business. It's a strange world we live in these days.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[armalites]

A mate of mine always used to make the depot unload/load his BOC bottles for him. When they asked why he replied "If you are charging me a handling fee then it's only right that you should do the handling"

 

[Dr.Al]

I've exchanged a few emails with BOC now and I think I've got something a bit clearer finally. I had asked them to clarify the pricing after receiving the letter quoting some very high charges and they replied and said "can you tell us what the letter said?" (shouldn't they already know this?!). I sent them a scanned copy of the letter and the reply was (with some rather major paraphrasing) "yeah, well, we sent that to everyone, you can ignore those prices".

I wasn't especially impressed with that response so I asked them to send something with the actual pricing that does apply to me. The numbers are higher than what I had previously agreed (back in December), although nowhere near as high as what was included in the letter. I'll probably go back to him and ask why the other prices have gone up if the only thing changing is the delivery charge.

Here's what I was sent:

and here's my updated comparison of the amount paid per year (including VAT, collection charges, surcharges etc) for pure Argon with BOC vs a Rent Free option (from Andy's Gas / Adam's Gas):

Compared to the price I was paying with BOC a few months ago when I signed up, that moves the balance slightly. It was cheaper to go with BOC if using two or more bottles a year. It's now only cheaper with three or more bottles a year (ignoring volume, which is estimated in the right-hand half of the table).

 

[Dcal]

@Dr.Al Thanks for taking the time to find this out, compile it and post it on here.
Really useful information and I will be staying with BOC for now.
I've a great local service and you always know they will have a bottle in stock.
Only complaint is why can't they sell gas on a Saturday?

It does however give us an stark reminder of what a welding hobby costs (I've two bottles)
I'm spending between £500 or £600 a year on gas +vat but well worth it I think.
If I had to give one up, I would keep the Argon.
Tig is just so adaptable and I've stick for heavy stuff but not thinking of it anytime soon.

 

[JonnyAlpha]

I have a suspended BOC account (as I have not done any welding for a couple of years) I am a hobbyist and need to do a small amount of welding (exhaust mod, subframe strength in hand a little bodywork). Last time I enquired at my local BOC outlet he suggested phoning BOC to see if I could get a better deal on the basis that I use so little. Looking at this thread I am a little unsure?
Just rang customer services, it rang and rang and then cut off.
I have just rang an auto factor who does South West Gas, rent free is going to cost me £129 all in for Argoshield 10L?

 

[Gritineye]

Just tried to order from BOC a bottle of Argoshield on line to collect as usual from local agent 10 mins away, but it seems that isn't available any more, only option is collect from depot 35 mls away or pay £70 delivery.

Total Price £136.68, I'll be closing my account now!

 

[Gazz292]

crikey this gas thing is hard work,
i was beginning to think that i may go to boc for my first bottle of argon for the tig, as ideally i'd like to get a 20 litre bottle, and i can see me using a couple of them in the first year with practicing n all that, and until i read this, i thought the volkzone / small weld deal was a fair deal, dosnet look like that now.

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.

 

[johnyev]

Just called them -

Last years gas price - 36.50, so about 10% rise on that price
Last years rental - 47.00, so another 10% on that also.

But, the killer - the £5.99 transaction charge.

I mean, imagine going to any other shop, and them selling you something, and then charging you to shop there. Considering a hobby user will only really ever be swapping one tank at a time, basically, theyve put up the gas price from 36.50 to 45.99 - which is just over a 25% increase, in addition to the 10% on the rental.


This will probably make rent-free more viable. I explained this to the person on the phone, and apparently "sales" are going to call me on monday....


The cynic in me thinks that the whole hobby gas thing was to attack the rent free market, and, now that theyve got people, they will milk them, knowing that people are too lazy to change.

Controversial but I think you’re right.