Metals Found in a Dumpster from a House Being Torn Down

I was in an area with a house being torn down (everything except the bare walls) and rebuilt. I looked on Zillow and found that the home is approximately 4,500 sqft., so a larger home.

The dumpster at the site was wide open on a Friday afternoon. I asked permission and was told to feel free to take what I wanted.



This is what I found. NONE of the wire inside was the cheap softer wire. It was all stiff copper (80%) type and bare bright copper- lots of ROMEX where I removed the bare bright. Also, there was a bit of aluminum (very stiff and thick) wire.

Note that I just went to the scrap yard two days earlier, so I feel I've got accurate prices below.

Bare bright copper wire: 4.5# @ $3.22 = $14.49
80% copper wire: 15.4# @ $2.54 = $39.12
Aluminum (stiff) wire: 2.4# @ $0.30 = $0.72
TOTAL FOR 22.3# OF WIRE: $54.33

This is much more than I thought I'd get from a single house. And, when I was stripping the wire at home I kept busy by watching TV or listening to the radio. So it wasn't wasted time. This was FUN and reasonably profitable as well.