Wasted $ - Page 2

I have been scraping for 6 years. I work in commercial roofing and get quite a bit of scrap from my projects. For years, I just watched the scrap sheet metal go in the dumpster and landfill. Now I scrap all the metal from the roof. We often remove old HVAC units and ones that have previously been vandalized (pretty often), redeck the hole, and roof like it was never there. I used to break the HVAC units down and separate the coils and copper but leave the compressors and electric motors in the shred loads. I probably took over 100 motors in the shred scrap before I realized they had good value by themselves. Then when I did start taking them in, I took it to a guy who paid about $0.10 less than other yards before I figured everything out. I finally started piling them up until I had a trailer load of them and take them in twice a year or so to a good buyer.

My refined method is sort and separate everything before getting more scrap and running out of storage space. I may lose some easy pickings, but I hope I will maximize the value of the labor I do.