Medium-voltage cable buyer in Manhattan

Shielded XLPE and legacy PILC in the same basement

Modern medium-voltage cable in the city is shielded XLPE or EPR: copper conductor, semiconducting screen, insulation, metallic tape or wire shield and an outer jacket, rated 5, 15, 25 or 35 kV. It is robust, it tolerates being pulled through a duct, and its value depends on whether the shield and jacket survived the pull and whether the length is clean and square-cut at both ends.

Legacy PILC is a different object. The insulation is oil-impregnated paper, the sheath is lead, and the joints were wiped by hand. A length of PILC has real copper and real lead in it, and its value is largely metal content plus whatever a specialist can reuse — but the lead sheath is soft and easily damaged, and a crushed or creased length is a handling problem as much as a pricing one.

The two should never be coiled together. A mixed coil of XLPE and PILC has to be separated before either can be priced, and the lead makes the whole coil heavier and dirtier than the copper content suggests. Keep the constructions apart, tag the voltage class if it is known and note whether the ends are sealed.

Size and voltage are the two facts to record before anything is coiled. Cable jackets carry a legend giving conductor size, voltage class and insulation type, and that legend is often the only identification left once the tag is gone. Photograph it while the cable is still straight, because a coil hides the printing on the inside of the bend.

• Shielded XLPE or EPR: conductor size, voltage class, shield type, jacket condition
• PILC: conductor size, lead sheath condition, presence of wiped joints
• Pulled lengths with sealed or taped ends versus open ends that took water
• Test records, cable tags and the switchgear or transformer it served
• Whether the run came out in one piece or in several cut sections

Vaults, basements and the loading plan

Access decides whether a Manhattan lot is worth collecting. Cable may be in a sub-basement with a freight elevator and a 30-inch door, in a vault under a sidewalk grate, or on a loading dock that is only usable between certain hours. A truck that cannot stop legally on the street is not a collection, and a coil that will not fit the elevator is not a load.

Removal is the owner's work and the owner's contractor's work. The circuit must be de-energised, proven dead and released before any cable is cut, and the pulling is done by qualified personnel with the right rigging. Nothing about that changes because the cable is being sold afterwards; a buyer never handles energised cable or opens a live vault.

The practical answer is often a two-stage move. The contractor coils and palletises the cable inside the building, and it leaves on a small truck or a liftgate load at a time that suits the building, then transfers to a trailer outside the borough. It costs a step and saves a wasted trip, which in Manhattan is usually the better trade.