Is scrap copper worth anything nowadays?

[William McNicol]

Hi,

We are just in the middle (well, perhaps not yet in the middle) of redoing our kitchen in our much hacked about house. I have removed a whole load of redundant copper (and lead) piping and a hot water cylinder from the roof space which had undoubtedly allowed generations of plumbers to send their children to private schools and to skiing holidays in exclusive Swiss resorts.

Is it likely to be worth the trouble of cutting up to fit in the car to sell for scrap? What sort of price /Kg would I get? (Should I remove fittings or just leave them on?)

Cheers,

William.

[Rick Dipper]

You will get enough to make it worth the effort, seeing as you need to get rid of it somehow, but you won't become a rich man.

Rick

[mrcheerful]

Copper is at a very high price at present 1680 pounds a tonne, according to :

[John Rouse]

In article , William McNicol writes

Its many years since I weighed-in any lead, but the chap advised me at the time that if I cut out the sweated joints from the lead pipe he would pay twice as much for those as for the pipe with joints.

J.

[Neal Jones]

I may soon be in the same position as William, how do I go about actually selling the copper to someone?

Neal

[mrcheerful]

Just look up scrap metal dealers (non ferrous) in the yellow pages. Ring and they will give you the latest price they will pay, take it down, they inspect and weigh it and pay out cash. This is a very satisfying experience !!

mrcheerful

[Mary Fisher]

It is indeed. But now we go to our local scrap merchant and buy copper cylinders from him. It's official and above board by the way, with all the necessary paperwork. We use the cylinder walls and return unused parts to him as scrap.

We make things from the copper sheet, it's far cheaper than buying it new and comes with a patina. Recycling at its best!

The scrap yard is also a very useful place becuase it has a weighbridge, great for assessing laden weights of vehicles, the caravan and the like.

Mary

[Dave Liquorice]

or =A31.68/kg I guess a scrappy will pay 50% to 75% of that if you are lucky...

[john]

Yes.. I have just taken out the copper pipe-work and copper HW tank and sold them for £25. It was a very small flat only two rooms. It was very important to remaove any brass fittings,(quite easy with copper pipe cutters).

[William McNicol]

Thanks for all the advice folks.

I think I'll encourage my 15 year old son to sort it out for a share of the profits... He seems to like the idea!

Cheers,

William.

[Mary Fisher]

Yes, it's the modern version of collecting jars and bottles to return to shops and pubs ... oh happy days ;-)

Mary

[Paper2002AD]

I sold a cylinder and some old copper pipe to a scrap yard just a week ago - the rate (rang around, it was the same at all the scrappies) was £700 per tonne

- I got £18 so it's worth the effort.

[Andy Hall]

25kg equates to quite a lot, even including the cylinder ......

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Paper2002AD]

There was fair bit of older copper pipe. Thicker than the modern stuff wannit?

[William McNicol]

I phoned the local scrappy... he's offering £6.50 a stone for copper pipe. Should I report him to Brussels for using imperial weights? :-)

Cheers,

William.

[Mary Fisher]

Tell us who he is!

Mary

[Neil Jones]

No, but if he refuses to to use metric then he's in trouble.

Neil

[Dev Null]

[re selling copper by the stone]

Why? - some metals are sold by the troy ounce - none of your Frenchified "having of the pound" ounces either. Real ounces!

Seems to work for the Bank of England ...

DN

[Neil Jones]

I assumed William was referring to the so-called 'metric martyrs' who, contratry to newspaper reports, were not prosecuted for selling in imperial weights, but for refusing to sell in metric.

Neil

[William McNicol]

Indeed I was. And I put a smiley... I'm quite happy to buy or sell in ounces, pounds, stones, hundredweights and the like since I went to school before the days of calculators and can do the sums in my head.... Still, I hear Tony Bliar is going to let us have a referendum about all this. Smiley ---> :-)