It wouldn’t be a British recovery without a great big bump in the road, and that bump is coming in April in the form of a rather sharp price increase in the cost of glass.

Yesterday @DoubleGlazeHour spoke about price increases of between 25-40% across all types of glass. If memory serves me correctly, this would be one of the largest increases in the past few years and will be highly unwelcome – even more so to the companies that have been struggling to cope with the extreme weather over the past couple of months. Business will have been difficult during these times, the last thing they need is a massive increase in cost.

What will be interesting is to see how much of that 25-40% increase is absorbed by the sectors manufacturers and how much of it is passed on to installers.

When it comes to price rises I am always split on what should happen. Working for an installations company, I am always less than positive to know that my prices have gone up. On the flip side, I understand that our manufacturers and suppliers have to pass this on at some point as they need to maintain a margin in order for them to be profitable.

There has also been a suggestion that the closing of glass lines was done on purpose to create a supply and demand shortage, forcing prices to rise that way. Shrewd business move or abuse of power? All comments welcome below on that one!

On a wider note, despite the size of the increases planned, it may not have such a massive impact as we may think. If a rise like this happened as little as just six months ago, when there was still some economic uncertainty knocking about, a rise of 40% may have been too much to take. But fast forward to right now, with the economy and our industry feeling far better about itself, the rise may be slightly negated by the fact that more money is being spent by the consumer now and the rise may not be felt so much.

Either way, I think there is going to be some very disgruntled people after this news. Out of all the prices, it always seems to be glass industry first to put it’s prices up and by the most. What might be good is for people from Pilks or Saint-Gobain to come on here and leave an explanation as to why the constant increases. I’m all for changing my mind if there is a valid reason, but I just cannot help feel that the monopoly is exercising its power over us once again.