100+ dishwashers

Got a call from a plumbing company saying he had about 75 dishwashers he wanted to get rid of. I told him I could pick them up, but it would take several trips, even with my 16 ft flatbed. He said no problem. He slightly underestimated, there is about 125 dishwashers. about 20% have metal bodies, the rest plastic. Along with about a dozen other appliances. The yards around me do not like to take the dishwashers with the plastic bodies as they do not like paying for all that plastic, and I do not blame them. Luckily I have 7 1/2 acres to store them as I disassemble them. Going to get a nice size batch of brass, stainless steel, electric motors and #2 insulated out of this. Plus will help me keep busy when I have nothing else to do. A couple of people have asked me what I am going to do with all the plastic bodies. I tell them I use them to put store larger pieces of plastic and other stuff I remove from other scrap I disassemble, then when it is full I load the whole thing in my truck and throw it in a dumpster. I also use several right now to store wood that I am going to burn during the winter. Helps to keep them off of the wet ground when it rains, and help to keep them from getting scattered during the year.

On top of scrapping the metal, I am going to keep all the better racks from the dishwashers and see if I can do something with them on ebay.

I have 1 plastic body from a dishwasher, I use it to store low grade boards in, wish I hade more of them for other boards.

They do make nice sized storage bins. I have one myself that I chuck my brown boards into.

Use them as storage bins for small scrap steel pieces. I would talk to your yard and see if that's acceptable. You could do exceptionally well, if you have the storage space as you described. I would use it like a savings plan; fill as many as you can and wait for prices to peak, sell all at once. Just my opinion. I don't see a yard having an issue, the ratio of fluff would be rather small if you filled the carcass with good material, especially in bulk.

Well this is turning out to be a bigger job than I anticipated. As I remove some, he adds some to the pile. With what I have hauled off so far and with what is left, I am looking at 300+ dishwashers. I took in a load of 24 washers in my flatbed that all had plastic bodies just to see what they would say, and they unloaded all of them with no problem since I did not take any of the good stuff off. I figure since I am taking in a lot of plastic, I can afford to leave the wiring harness, electric motors, ect on there. I will average about $150 for a load of 24 without having to process them, so I will get around a couple of grand just for what he has now, not counting what extra he throws on. I am kind of running into a bit of a problem though. I am picking up other stuff during the week, but it is so dark at night when I get home I cannot process them. Then my weekends are spent trying to get all the dishwashers off his property, and I have little time to process the others, so they are accumulating. Not complaining though, this is kind of a good problem to have. Once I have gotten most of the dishwashers off his property (I am storing them on my property for right now), then I can just start loading and taking about 3 loads in every Saturday to the scrap yard. Sure wish they were open more than half a day on Saturday, and wish they were open on Sunday, but it is what it is. I got a feeling that this may turn out to be a long term deal, so if you get a chance you may want to talk to a plumbing company. If they say they have someone already, then still give them a card and tell them if they have anything they need to get rid of and their regular person cannot take care of it, to give you a call. May get your foot in the door. I got this deal because one of his workers who scraps would rather deer hunt right now, and if I read the cards right, he may be losing out permanently. In addition to all these dishwashers I have gotten 8 water heaters, about 10 cast iron sinks, about 15 steel sinks, around 3 dozen faucets (can you say brass galore!!) and a couple of other little odds and ends. I do some cleaning up as I go, and he was very pleased about that as he never asked me to do it, I just did it on my own. I sure hate these short days, as I go to work when it is dark and do not get home until it is dark.

In case if anyone is wondering whether CL ads work or not, he got my name from CL, so hang in there. There have been times I did not get a single call for a couple of months, but lately I have gotten 2 - 3 per week.

Originally Posted by brokescrapper

If I may recommend something here.

When I get a big load like this I rent a large 5 ton truck with a power tailgate. (or borrow one if I can)

Also hire a labourer to help you(pay him/her a good wage so they are happy to work for you).

Most of my customers want the stuff gone asap or they call someone else-it sucks to spend money on stuff like this but believe me it is worth it in the long run!

Congrats on the big score!

It would be an option if he really needed it gone quick, but the main reason for him to call me was that he had so much stuff there he could not get a replacement bin in the yard for his cardboard. I concentrated on the area that the bin would go and got it cleaned out and cleaned up, so he is good with me going in there when I get the chance. He gave me the combination to the two gates there, so I am basically free to go when I want, I just need to text him when I am going and when I leave (which is just common courtesy anyway). Since I am not going anywhere for Thanksgiving, I will probably make 6 - 8 trips between this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Should be able to clear out 150 - 200 dishwashers. The only thing bad is it takes a little over an hour to get there one way, but with getting $150 at least a pop, I can live with it. If I can do this in the next few days, then that should put me in good position to start processing the other appliances I have been accumulating. That is the nice thing about having a 16ft flatbed, as I process an appliance I can put it on the flatbed, and when the flatbed is full off to the scrapyard I go.