Annoying dirge of the earth, cooper scavengers

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rjundi

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This has been happening more and more in our area and I imagine everywhere. People stealing copper.

Some digusting example are some dirtbags who broke into a house for sale (empty) stealing cooper piping out of all things. It caused thousands of dollars in damage as they did not cut the well water power when they attempted this flooding the home.

Another example is priests have caught dirtbags stealing beautiful old cooper gutters from the side of old catholic churches around Boston.

There was another case of a few who did not realize some heavy gauge wiring in an unused building was live. One died however in his death set the place on fire.

Does this happen every where?
 
Friend has an old town house in nearby town. For sale, unoccupied(so no insurance). Druggies tore apart (2) 4ton, thre year old HVAC units in yard to strip copper. Also broke in and stripped copper plumbing and electrical. Did over THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS damage!! Stolen material brought maybe $200. scrap price. He'd have paid that much to have had yard mowed a couple of times.


Nearby closed factory building stripped of over 40Grand materials! plumbing and wiring. Reward being offered ($1,000.)

My home is 2miles from city limits on hardsurface county road. Stretch of power supply line from home to small sub-station just up road had ground (lower neutral) wire CUT AND REMOVED while power still on! Continued to work approx 2 weeks 'till power company got around to replacing. Think what they used is aluminum replacement.

No one charged in either incident.
 
In the early 1970s we found the electrical facilities in an abandoned industrial building broken into and evidence that someone had tried to cut an energized 12Kv lead covered copper cable. Three days later, in a nearby town, a badly burned body was found in a field. Tough way to go.

Several months ago a copper down spout was stolen from my garage. At least they didn't get the gutter. This sort of theft has been going on for some time.

I'm looking for about a foot of 3-inch ID pipe (wall thickness no big deal) to cut into mounting brackets for the new down spout. The original mounting brackets were just copper sheet, and easily cut. Anyone have any ideas for a inexpensive source. Replacement down spout and bends cost $75, and I am opposed to spending more than that for new brackets.
 
They are stealing railway signal cable from around here.

Huge lengths of unpatrolled railway. 10km stolen in a night.
 
We just had a big one up here.

Linky

A brazen metal thief drove away last week with 4,500 aluminum brackets and other metal, worth $200,000, meant for the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre expansion, a welding company owner says.

"A truck driver showed up and said he was here to pick up some aluminum," Marsh said in an interview.

"The neighbouring company said they didn't know anything about it, but here's this stuff, and they loaded it up in the truck.

"Then they came back on Saturday -- the same trucking company, the same driver -- and loaded up all the steel angle [bars], which is also for the convention centre." Marsh said he discovered the thefts on Monday, when he sent an employee to the facility for a legitimate pickup.


I'm guessing they had a long talk with the guy who let them take it without checking for ID.
 
At my previous job we had someone remove all of the copper piping out of a 100,000 sqft facility we were building. it was out in an industrial area with nobody around. they used the scissor lifts to get everything from the ceiling to the floor. it was all done in one night. many thousands of $$$$ were lost.
 
To me is seems like such a difficult thing to acquire and then transport especially the weight to get any real money. However I guess the audit trail seriously is lacking and product forever disappears.
 
Copper theft in the Katrina recovery zone is widespread both in still abandonned structures and new construction. Attempts to control it focus on the recycling centers and scrap yards. Those attempts have mostly failed. Can we blame it on China?
 
im a small time metal recycler. ive been known to raid someones trashbin for a car wheel, copper wiring, aluminum gutters even a frigerator. but id never actually steal anything. people that steal metals are giving people like me a bad reputation. its not as though i actively drive around looking through other peoples trash. i just keep my eyes open for recyclable things when i go out on errands and such. if i happen to see an aluminum wheel thats worth $15 at the recycler, ill stop and throw it in my trunk. a big old 37 inch tv? yeah there $30 in copper in one of those. ill grab it, bring it home and spend 20 minutes tearing it apart for the copper inside. $30 for 20 minutes of work and a little lost dignity isnt bad. when the last hurricanes went through south florida i was literally making about a thousand dollars a day. people would throw their broken aluminum screen enclosures to the curb. i would stop by load it up and take it to the recycler. an honest thousand dollars a day is not bad. at that price i actually did actively hunt for recyclables, pulling a trailer no less.
just recently i scored 5000lbs of lead sailboat ballast from a marina for free. the owner of the marina gave me permission to haul it away. so i did. lead is worth 5 cents per pound, so for about 2 hours worth of manual labour loading and unloading it, a half hour drive there and back, and a 20 minute wait at the recycler i made $250 bucks. not bad...
like i said this metal theft is giving me a bad rep. i wont pull anything out of dumpsters. i wont go onto construction sites to raid the roll offs anymore. its not worth the risk. i stick to curb side things now.
people that actually steal metal, espically from live power lines are drug users, meth or crack heads mostly. i camt imagine anyone else having the courage to cut down live power lines or steal railroad equipment.
 
In Detroit there was a sad story of a dilapidated, but active and architecturally pleasing old building (an athletic club), where all the copper was scavenged. The building needed renovation before the incident, but this incident was the straw that broke the camel's back and the building is now condemned and to be destroyed.
 
I could give you incident after incident from my 35 years as a utility employee. Yes, Master ACID is right that many copper/aluminum thieves are substance abusers, but some are just unaware of the risks they are taking. We found people using dish washing gloves to remove energized copper -- hint: It doesn't work. Sometimes it seems Darwin was right.
 
What is the going rate for metals? (copper, iron, aluminum, lead, etc) I've seen stocks of stuff going to the trash that I wondered if it would be worth selling to recyclers. My brother set out an old washer and a guy drove by and picked it up. Stated he scrapped the steal for $$$. How much $$$ can you get out of these things?
 
My ex-bro-in-law, back in the 80's, saw a school being torn down with all aluminum windows. He bought the rights to the windows for $200. The guys tearing down the school used their equipment to gather the windows in a pile. They then used their tractor to crush the frames up and put in his pickup. He drove to the recycler and made $2500 for a few hours work.
 
I sell recyclable materials generated by my shop. Think this type recycling is great. Used Cat converters as high as $125.00 EACH!

Destroying property to generate revenues of less than 10% of replacement cost should receieve severe punishment.

Bob
 
Quote:

What is the going rate for metals? (copper, iron, aluminum, lead, etc) I've seen stocks of stuff going to the trash that I wondered if it would be worth selling to recyclers. My brother set out an old washer and a guy drove by and picked it up. Stated he scrapped the steal for $$$. How much $$$ can you get out of these things?

Click to expand...


lead, iron, steel are generally 5 cents pre pound for clean metal. "clean" means no wood, plastic etc. paint, grease and dirt are fine.
extruded aluminum, cast car wheels, soda cans are 65 cents a pound. these also need to be "clean" no tyres, no lead weights, no valve stems. paint dirt and grease are ok. put it another way, a single recycling bin full of crushed soda cans is worth about $9.00. thats how i take em in and thats what they pay.

other aluminum like cast cylinder heads, pistons, intakes, aluminum lawn furnature are 20 cents per pound. again need to be clean.

clean copper, brass bronze etc thats been stripped of insulation is $3.00 and clean is $3.00 per pound.

they also recycle metals like zinc, titanium, etc but i dont know these prices.

cat converters are between $75 and $150 depending on size and weight. they have some sort of sizing scale from small to large

if a metal isnt "clean" then the prices is usually cut in half, so it really pays to clean up and sort youre metals before going to the recycler. for example, copper wiring. if you bring them copper wiring with plastic insulation and steel end crimpings, they cut the price in half. if you cut the insulation (or burn it off) and cut off the steel ends, its worth twice as much. they also wont take car parts if they still hold oil. you have to drain engines, transmissions, rear ends etc before bringing them to be recycled. you dont have to do a good job draining them. but you have to get most of it out. they will pull the plug to make sure you drained it. residual oil is OK.

the recycling centre near me told me that if its made out of "metal" they will buy it. washing machines, microwaves, tv, transmission, pots and pans, computers.... they buy ANY metal, doesnt matter what it is.
 
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