If you are buying wire for electrical purposes these days, you have probably felt the pain of soaring copper prices…
Copper is a nice and profitable scrap metal to take to the local scrap yard, but you will quickly find that when the shoe is on the other foot, having to buy anything that has copper in it is going to cost you an arm and a leg!
Take copper wiring for example. Copper is one of the highest conductors of electricity, second only to silver. Can you even imagine if wire was made out of silver? Ouch! Copper is expensive enough.
If you are planning on rewiring your house, today may not be the right time to buy copper wiring. I have seen a roll of 12/2 250′ wire sell at Lowes for $24 bucks a roll a few years ago when copper was down. Today it is in the $70′s per roll. This adds up quickly for a major wire job. Also, the larger the wire (common sizes are 14/2, 14/3, 12/2, 12/3, 10/2 and 10/3), will increase in price strictly due to the amount of copper inside of it. You are looking at almost $200 for a roll of 10/3 copper wire…again..ouch!
Salvaging and scrapping out of copper wire can be very profitable, but buying new stuff on the other hand, will cost you a small fortune and is not something that most people readily understand when buying anything made out of copper.
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