Fresh Ideas on Where to Find Scrap Metal

Being a plumber I spend lots of time on top of buildings. It may be difficult to get access but most commercial buildings and resturants have hvac units on the roof. When a hvac tech replaces the compressor or a large fan motor they leave the old parts on the roof. Older buildings are better.

Originally Posted by Scrap man

Being a plumber, don't you come across a lot of things anyway? Pipes, furnaces, etc?

Yes, I took in 9 waterheaters and a bucket full of brass. I have a couple of trashcans full of copper I'm taking in the morning along with some compressors,garbage disposals and a few fan motors. I also have a wad of wire to strip tonight.

I live in a rural area. I was thinking of checking out old ranch dump sites. Just about every ranch and farm has a washout where they tossed all the garbage in or dumped old cars and house items. Has anyone checked out something like this before?

Originally Posted by j&jscrap

I live in a rural area. I was thinking of checking out old ranch dump sites. Just about every ranch and farm has a washout where they tossed all the garbage in or dumped old cars and house items. Has anyone checked out something like this before?

Yeah man. I just did my first site like this (a small one) and it was 1960lbs of mixed metal, so $206. A buddy of mine almost exclusively does dump sites like this. He has given me some pointers and, from what it sounds like, you can make a good bit of extra cash. I would strongly recommend a metal detector if you can find one (or have one already). Without the metal detector I would have never found 30% or more of my haul. I dug up probably 50% of everything with a rake, and some parts were protruding and some were not.

Important Note: Heavier (more valuable) items will sink under the dirt and leaves faster than the lighter items. The great thing about these "ranch" dump sites is that the farmers usually threw their oil cans, steel buckets, and other light-weight items in with the heavier stuff. These lighter items "float" above the heavier items and allow you to find them easier. In the few sites I'm working on I do it like this: I see a bucket or something and go to it, move it, and then rake all around. I pull out whatever is just sitting beneath the leaves, and then run over it with the metal detector. More times than not there is a stovetop, furnace top, broken driveshaft, bearing, cam shaft, or something heavy that has sunken into the leaves and roots. I pull it out and start a pile or wheelbarrow it to the truck. Look around the site, too, because these guys seem to avoid dumping in the exact same spot. One I saw the other week was literally 50yds long and of scattered metal. Who does that to their property? (my old relatives... hehe).

These sites can also be deceiving. I found one the other day and raved about the "tons of metal" I had just stumbled into. When I took my truck down to haul it out, I realized that some idiot had covered the stuff with fill dirt and it was virtually impossible to move. Why would you ever cover a bunch of junk halfway with fill dirt and then leave it forever????