Thread: "Cheaper" oxy-acetylene

Originally Posted by scarry

Same here,one of the reasons I have moved on.......

In fact the refrigeration wholesalers now have oxy and acet,in D size.

Haven't really looked closely,but they did say oxy is $25 a bottle,which is very competitive.

What they are also looking at is bundling all bottles together as one package,that is oxy,acet,nitrogen,and refrigerant,for account holders.

We moved to the Bunnings system a couple of years ago,and no real complaints.

I think BOC have had the market for too long for themselves,and have charged what they like,and provided a **** service as well.They were never competative with refrigerants.

I think their bread and butter are the big customers such as Hospitals.In this market they probably have no opposition.

Even their agents and outlets don't like them.

Not trying to bash BOC....

I did the quote round robin with gas suppliers recently and emailed the results to the GM and account managers.
It made interesting reading.

Anyway, I asked the question at BOC regarding specs for Nitrogen.

No one seemed to know so we discovered the difference between the two specs, industrial (032) and high purity (034) could be impacting some of our jobs.

A number of us had been sourcing the nitro from the local independent refrig wholesaler as it was high purity from A-Gas.
Their price was the same as BOC's industrial spec, which had higher levels of oxygen and more importantly for us, moisture.
One of our account managers, who is very technically switched on was surprised at the difference in specs as they'd just been grabbing 'nitro' from BOC, which was the industrial spec.
At least everyone here has been taught to use a vacstat and all the boys, including the apprentices posses them, so it's never been an issue.

Having said that BOC's pricing to us on oxy/aceylene and consumables and even things like regs is very competitive, we definitely don't pay retail, so they can do it if they want to.

As an aside, the local independent wholesaler absolutely flogs the big national wholesalers on refrigerant pricing, at times to the tune of 25% better.
I needed R407c for a small (80kw) chiller the other day and thought I'd give the big guys a shot again as they've been angling for our gas purchases and was shocked at the difference in refrigerant pricing, they were no where near what we normally pay.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

I think BOC gasses must be trying to **** the rest of there customer base off to the point where no-one can be bothered with them. My brother rings me this morning... He's bought and old forklift and needs an LPG bottle to get it off the trailer and into his shed. He's rang BOC gasses and they shut at 11:30am Saturdays ( FFS: Why don't they try opening 10:00 -> 2:00pm Saturdays so there actuallly useful. There is no way you would bother with them when most welding gasses these days can be purchased through bunnings and total tools (open 7days a week till 10:00pm at night).

Anyway, I load the 3 kids into the car ... drive all the way upto BOC gasses "Can I grab a forklift bottle mate"..... He looks up my account, acts kinda weird ... looks at me again ... then wanders out the door of the store... "which one is your car" .... "The old range rover" .... "I can't let you have a bottle".

for crying out bloody loud ... here we bloody go. I'd just turn a BBQ bottle upside down so we have liquid and not deal with this bloody useless company if I had my way ... but I don't have the quick release fitting on the forklift ..... "WHY".... "Well you can't carry LPG in the back of a car, you need a ute" ....... me: "Why the hell would I use a ute ... it would be an unrestrained load in the back" .... "It's not safe to carry an LPG bottle in your car" ...... "Well **** me, what about the two bottles already in there .... with the open gas taps the car is running from" .......................... Him: "no I can't do it" .... ME: "What if I want BBQ gas ... How the **** do people now get a BBQ bottle from you" ... Him: "They can carry 1 9kg bottle in there car, not two" .... Me: "what is the difference between 9kg or 18kg of LPG in the car ... Are you bottles that ****house you think they'll leak ?".... Him: " I just can't let you have it" ..... Me: "can I still take all the other gasses in my car" .. Him: "Yes" .... Me: "So your telling me I can take orderless, tasteless gasses that does not support life in a car .. where you would never know they are leaking, but gas that I would know if even the tiniest bit escaped instantly isn't Ok" ... Him: "Er, yes"..... Me: " What if I get a trailer and let it bounce around unrestrained in the trailer" ... Him: "Yes that's fine"....

So I drive all the god damn way back home, get the trailer out of the paddock .... drive all the god damn way back there... Just getting there by now 11:25pm ( 5minutes before close). The 3 young kids in the back are far from impressed with being stuck in the car all this time. Go and get the bottle... Tell them, I'm going to buy my own and never deal with this useless bloody company ever again ( they are $350'ish on ebay with a connector that allows you to fill them at 50cents a litre at your local petrol station) walk past the bloody trailer (where it would be incredibly difficult to safely tie down) put it in the back of the range rover and tow the empty bloody trailer back home.

How the hell is BOC gases still in business when they go out of there way to **** the customer base off so much ?

seeya,
Shane L.

Personally I very much hate BOC........infact detest the company.
But the law in NSW set by the government states nothing bigger than a 9kg bottle can be carried in the boot of a car, even though the 18 KG bottle has more safety features including a self cut off cupoling and the 9 kg bottle has a tap which can viberate open and turn the car into a bomb.
BOC can be sued if something happens.
It is illegal to fill a forklift bottle at a service station unless the bottle is mounted on a forklift driven into the service station.(10 thousand dollar fine for the retailer if caught doing so)
It is illegal to drive a forklift with full time rego on public roads with the tynes fitted unless the tynes are removed from the forklift.
The govt is happy to take your money for full time rego of your forklift
and is then happy as the RMS to book you for doing so.

The old days you could fill forklift bottles in the back of your Ute ect.
The problem was at places like the Sydney fruit markets they would throw 10 bottles in the back of a Ute and go down to the local servo and fill them while smoking a fag and some times blow themselves up.
The gas companies naturally pushed for non filling of your own bottles at public services stations so they could get more controll of the market too.
The answer to your problem of getting a forklift bottle and carrying it in your car would have been to park your car next door out of sight and walk in.
Take the bottle and walk out of the gas suppliers yard and place it in the car yourself and in that way the gas company knows nothing and is not responsible, but you would be if some thing goes wrong.
Another reason for not carrying forklift bottles in motor cars and utes for that matter......??how many people in the world secure them correctly incase of an accident.
Company greed, lazy, dumb people and a leeching,fault finding blaming legal system is a problem to our evey day lives.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

I think BOC gasses must be trying to **** the rest of there customer base off to the point where no-one can be bothered with them. My brother rings me this morning... He's bought and old forklift and needs an LPG bottle to get it off the trailer and into his shed. He's rang BOC gasses and they shut at 11:30am Saturdays ( FFS: Why don't they try opening 10:00 -> 2:00pm Saturdays so there actuallly useful. There is no way you would bother with them when most welding gasses these days can be purchased through bunnings and total tools (open 7days a week till 10:00pm at night).



Anyway, I load the 3 kids into the car ... drive all the way upto BOC gasses "Can I grab a forklift bottle mate"..... He looks up my account, acts kinda weird ... looks at me again ... then wanders out the door of the store... "which one is your car" .... "The old range rover" .... "I can't let you have a bottle".



for crying out bloody loud ... here we bloody go. I'd just turn a BBQ bottle upside down so we have liquid and not deal with this bloody useless company if I had my way ... but I don't have the quick release fitting on the forklift ..... "WHY".... "Well you can't carry LPG in the back of a car, you need a ute" ....... me: "Why the hell would I use a ute ... it would be an unrestrained load in the back" .... "It's not safe to carry an LPG bottle in your car" ...... "Well **** me, what about the two bottles already in there .... with the open gas taps the car is running from" .......................... Him: "no I can't do it" .... ME: "What if I want BBQ gas ... How the **** do people now get a BBQ bottle from you" ... Him: "They can carry 1 9kg bottle in there car, not two" .... Me: "what is the difference between 9kg or 18kg of LPG in the car ... Are you bottles that ****house you think they'll leak ?".... Him: " I just can't let you have it" ..... Me: "can I still take all the other gasses in my car" .. Him: "Yes" .... Me: "So your telling me I can take orderless, tasteless gasses that does not support life in a car .. where you would never know they are leaking, but gas that I would know if even the tiniest bit escaped instantly isn't Ok" ... Him: "Er, yes"..... Me: " What if I get a trailer and let it bounce around unrestrained in the trailer" ... Him: "Yes that's fine"....



So I drive all the god damn way back home, get the trailer out of the paddock .... drive all the god damn way back there... Just getting there by now 11:25pm ( 5minutes before close). The 3 young kids in the back are far from impressed with being stuck in the car all this time. Go and get the bottle... Tell them, I'm going to buy my own and never deal with this useless bloody company ever again ( they are $350'ish on ebay with a connector that allows you to fill them at 50cents a litre at your local petrol station) walk past the bloody trailer (where it would be incredibly difficult to safely tie down) put it in the back of the range rover and tow the empty bloody trailer back home.



How the hell is BOC gases still in business when they go out of there way to **** the customer base off so much ?



seeya,

Shane L.

Umm, so the way I read it
- lack of planning by your brother
- not happy with a company's opening hours, doesn't suit your situation, brothers planning again
- not happy to follow rules of the company that you have an account with
- break said the rules and load cylinder into car instead of trailer
- than state you are going to fill cylinders illegally............

Yep 100% BOC's problem.

Originally Posted by weeds

Umm, so the way I read it
- lack of planning by your brother
- not happy with a company's opening hours, doesn't suit your situation, brothers planning again
- not happy to follow rules of the company that you have an account with
- break said the rules and load cylinder into car instead of trailer
- than state you are going to fill cylinders illegally............

Yep 100% BOC's problem.

That's how I read it.
There are DG transportation regulations for a reason.
As a company they are not dealing with harmless products. It would be a completely different tune he'd be singing if he were involved in an accident, and the cylinder ruptured, exploded, or crushed one of his children. I think Shane's contempt of the law and safety advice from the sales clerk is laughable and downright irresponsible.

For show and tell, I have a video.
Here is an aftermath of a van after an oxy / acetylene explosion.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSbohasKM_Q[/ame]

Originally Posted by weeds

Umm, so the way I read it
- lack of planning by your brother
- not happy with a company's opening hours, doesn't suit your situation, brothers planning again
- not happy to follow rules of the company that you have an account with
- break said the rules and load cylinder into car instead of trailer
- than state you are going to fill cylinders illegally............

Yep 100% BOC's problem.

Yes, I'm glad you agree. The a ****house, bloody hopeless company to deal with. I'll certainly never bother again.

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

That's how I read it.
There are DG transportation regulations for a reason.
As a company they are not dealing with harmless products. It would be a completely different tune he'd be singing if he were involved in an accident, and the cylinder ruptured, exploded, or crushed one of his children. I think Shane's contempt of the law and safety advice from the sales clerk is laughable and downright irresponsible.

For show and tell, I have a video.
Here is an aftermath of a van after an oxy / acetylene explosion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSbohasKM_Q

I fail to see how this has anything to do with carrying an lpg gas bottle home ..... There has been two much bigger gas bottles sitting in the back of the car for the last 30years... bloody deadly right

I know I'm just crazy and insane. Just last week alone I saw 20 people blow up from carrying a bbq bottle in there car ... Crazy I tell you!! Actually, a couple of weeks back I watched someone fill up 3 lpg bottles in his boot at a servo while I was filling up with gas. I wondered over to have a look. It's 100% safe from what I could tell. His bottles must have been forklift bottles. They were all fitted with proper lockoff valves and had the filler plugs attached to the top of the bottles.

I've filled thousands of gas bottles. Never heard of anyone smoking and "blowing themselves up" filling bottles in the back of there car. Were not talking cracking open the filler plug and filling the bottles to the top ( like I would without a seconds hesitation from any bottle if I needed too, if it doesn't have a liquid pickup, just turn the bottle upside down). These bottles people are filling have have the correct fittings for safe filling fitted just like a car.

I see them as dangerous from an unrestrained cylinder point of view. Gas bottles leakign an blowing up is almost unheard of .... ever. DUmbest thing you could ever do is have an LPG cylinder bouncing around unrestrained in the back of a ute or trailer.

I still don't get why BOC think 9kg of gas in your car is perfectly safe ... but 18 isn't .... Guess what sort of bang 9kgs would open if you opened the gas tap inside a car The explosion would be enormous ....

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

That's how I read it.
There are DG transportation regulations for a reason.
As a company they are not dealing with harmless products. It would be a completely different tune he'd be singing if he were involved in an accident, and the cylinder ruptured, exploded, or crushed one of his children. I think Shane's contempt of the law and safety advice from the sales clerk is laughable and downright irresponsible.

For show and tell, I have a video.
Here is an aftermath of a van after an oxy / acetylene explosion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSbohasKM_Q

Yes I know ... countless people that have died carrying a bbq bottle home in the last 6months alone... It is just horrific. We need to have a investigation into this highly dangerous, downright suicidal practice. Won't someone think of the childdren

Originally Posted by rick130

Not trying to bash BOC....

I did the quote round robin with gas suppliers recently and emailed the results to the GM and account managers.
It made interesting reading.

Anyway, I asked the question at BOC regarding specs for Nitrogen.

No one seemed to know so we discovered the difference between the two specs, industrial (032) and high purity (034) could be impacting some of our jobs.

A number of us had been sourcing the nitro from the local independent refrig wholesaler as it was high purity from A-Gas.
Their price was the same as BOC's industrial spec, which had higher levels of oxygen and more importantly for us, moisture.
One of our account managers, who is very technically switched on was surprised at the difference in specs as they'd just been grabbing 'nitro' from BOC, which was the industrial spec.
At least everyone here has been taught to use a vacstat and all the boys, including the apprentices posses them, so it's never been an issue.

Having said that BOC's pricing to us on oxy/aceylene and consumables and even things like regs is very competitive, we definitely don't pay retail, so they can do it if they want to.

As an aside, the local independent wholesaler absolutely flogs the big national wholesalers on refrigerant pricing, at times to the tune of 25% better.
I needed R407c for a small (80kw) chiller the other day and thought I'd give the big guys a shot again as they've been angling for our gas purchases and was shocked at the difference in refrigerant pricing, they were no where near what we normally pay.

Yep,exactly,in an earlier life I spent many years commissioning,working for one of the largest mech services companies in the country.

Particularly on Govt jobs,we had to get the vacuums to hold overnight,often on very large DX systems.And had their inspectors looking over our shoulders.If we used high purity nitro,very little issues.Any other nitro,lots of issues.Most of the pipe work was done by Mech plumbers,so they didn't really care what type it was.

At the moment,From our normal wholesalers,I am pleasantly surprised at the prices we are getting any gear for,it seems to be the lowest it has ever been.

None of the Indies can get anywhere near it.The old days of getting 40% off retail are long gone,try 60 to 70% at least.

In fact I don't know how they can keep going at these rates.

I am wondering if it will keep up once the weather warms up?

I doubt it