An electrical business generates the best scrap in the trades and usually gets the least for it. The reason is simple. Offcuts go in whatever bin is closest, the drum ends get stacked in a corner for a year, and by the time anyone deals with it, it has all been mixed into one heap that gets paid as the worst thing in it.
What we buy off sparkies
- Cable and wire, all grades. Twin and earth offcuts, orange circular, building wire, data and comms cable, armoured cable, co-ax, the lot. Priced on the copper content, so the thicker the conductor and the thinner the sheath, the better it pays.
- Stripped bare copper. If it is already clean it goes in at the top rate.
- Switchboards and distribution boards. Old boards, breakers, contactors, busbar. The busbar is usually copper or tinned copper and worth real money.
- Transformers and ballasts. Both have copper windings. Worth taking off a strip-out rather than leaving.
- Electric motors. Off fans, pumps, roller doors. Paid per kilo whole, no need to pull them apart.
- Conduit and cable tray. Steel tray, galvanised conduit, aluminium tray. Low rate per kilo but it adds up by volume and it is taking up your yard.
- Copper water pipe. Sparkies end up with it on strip-outs as often as plumbers do.
Should you strip cable yourself?
Sometimes. The gap between insulated cable and clean bare copper is the biggest decision you make with this metal. Check the current bands in the table below before you commit a day to it.
Indicative rates, the same ones on the home page. Metal markets move every week, so ring 0435 805 124 for the exact figure before you load up.
The rough rule: heavy single-core cable with a thin sheath is worth stripping, because the recovery is high and a stripping machine gets through it fast. Thin twin and earth, data cable and anything with a thick sheath is usually not, because you spend an hour to gain a few dollars a kilo on very little copper. If you are doing enough volume to justify a bench stripper, that changes the maths and we will tell you honestly where your break-even sits.
How we set it up for an electrical business
- You tell us your yard or unit location and roughly how much cable a month you generate.
- We drop a cage for cable and, if you want, a second one for steel conduit and tray so the two never get mixed.
- Your crew tips offcuts straight into the cage instead of the site bin.
- Ring when it is full. We weigh by grade on site so you can see which pile earned what.
- Paid by EFT to the business. Non-cash payment on the relevant metals is what SA rules require, and it is cleaner for your books.
Why it matters more than it looks
A two-van electrical business throwing cable offcuts in the general waste bin is paying a skip company to remove the single most valuable material on the job. Flip that around and the same metal is a cheque every couple of months. Nothing changes about how your crew works except which bin the offcut lands in.