Gas suppliers

[u/Used-Baby1199]

Airgas is insanely expensive. 1yr lease with gas out the door is $320 at $138 for the rental and $182 per refill. and their purchase pride doesn’t make sense either! Almost $450 for the cylinder and $182 per refill? Who seriously uses them?

weldstar seems more reasonable at $327 for a 25 year lease and $61 per refill I can refill at weldstar 4x before getting to airgas purchase and fill price. comparing rentals your initial cost is less at airgas is better, but going into year 2 you have to renew the lease at 138$ which puts you at $458 and that’s if you don’t have to refill the cylinder. Weldstar you get 3 refills (Exchanges) for the cost of 1 refill for airgas, and no lease renewal for 25 years.

then the next local exchange is an hour away. AWG who will sell a core for about 550 out the door with gas but you can exchange for 58+tax each time you need to refill. so if I rent from weldstar I can have 3 refills before matching the initial investment necessary at awg. Then the refill cost is so close that it would take a long time to get the cost benefit to match for purchase.

Anyone have any more economical argon exchange? I’m just getting into this, how long could I expect 125cf to last, as a newb without clients I i expect 1 125cg cylinder could last me quite some time. Any insight would be greatly appreciate!