It looks like we’re about to be hit by another price increase again. And as always, it glass that is going up.

It was Mark Warren that first tweeted that glass prices were going up. I replied and he confirmed that the increase was going to be 4%. Not sure if that’s 4% across the board, 4% on just float, with others going up more. I suspect that the 4% will be on float, with higher increases on the more expensive options like toughened and laminated.

I also pressed him as to who sent him the letter he was quoting 4% from, he wouldn’t tell me. Though I do suspect that the letter will be from Pilks. If so, expect the rest of the cartel to follow with similar price increases over the coming few weeks.

The increase is coming in September. All the other increases from the other glass companies will be in before the end of the year.

This is going to be a bit of a bitter pill to swallow for most suppliers. The economy is only just starting to get back on its feet, with manufacturers only just starting to report increases in production. The last thing they want is another increase just to negate the progress made over the last few months.

But, the wider question that remains is if these increases are going to be passed on down the chain. Suppliers will already be feeling a lot of pressure on their margins. They will feel like they have to pass them on the their installers. But, installers are also feeling the pinch and will be very reluctant to take these increases on the chin. Some will, wrongly in my opinion, and some will pass them on, rightly.

What I really would like to see is an investigation into the major glass systems market just to try and uncover what we all think. The EU investigated the hardware sector and discovered a lot of wrongdoing and quite rightly handed out some hefty fines. I am pretty sure that if they did the same sort of digging around that they would also discover similar behaviour.