Seller situation · The back of the shop
Contractor leftover cable buyers in New York
Every electrical contractor has a corner where the leftovers go: part reels from finished jobs, coils of offcuts, and whatever came back in the job trailer at closeout. None of it has paperwork, and all of it is saleable.
Sell this cable
Send the construction, size and footage. Photographs can follow.
Prefer to talk? 614-715-3047 · saleselectricalbuyers@gmail.com
Contractor leftovers are bought on inspection rather than documentation. Value comes from three cheap sorts: separate copper from aluminum, separate building wire from tray and portable cord, and keep anything above a usable length apart from the shorts. That is half a day of work, and it usually moves the lot from a scrap price to a cable price.
What is actually in the corner
The pile is predictable in its composition even when it looks chaotic. Most of the volume is small building wire in part reels, a few hundred feet at a time, accumulated from jobs that each needed slightly less than a full reel. There are coils of offcuts from pulls, measured for a run that changed, and there is usually a cluster of tray cable remnants from a job with a long tray run.
The rest is odds and ends: portable cord still on a cord reel, a couple of medium-voltage pigtails left from terminations, control cable from a motor job, and whatever came back in the trailer and was never put away. Mixed in with it are empty reels, broken flanges, cardboard, banding and the occasional tool somebody has been looking for.
Nothing in the pile is there by accident. Each item is the residue of a decision: a reel bought for a job that needed less, a coil kept because the next job might want it, a length saved because the alternative was a second trip to the supplier. The pile is a record of how the business buys, which is why the same shapes turn up in shop after shop.
The proportions are worth understanding before deciding how much sorting the pile deserves. Most of the weight is low-value small conductor. Most of the value sits in a handful of large-conductor reels and anything medium voltage. Sorting effort should go where the value is, which means the large reels first and the small coils last.
The half-day sort that changes the offer
A mixed pile is priced as recovery metal, because that is all a buyer can be certain of. The sort below does not need skill, tools or a cable counter, and it moves the same material into a different category.
- Pull out every reel that still has a factory tag and stand them together, tag side out. These are the first thing to photograph.
- Separate copper from aluminum, and never put them back on the same pallet. Mixed conductor is the single most common reason a good lot prices as scrap.
- Separate by family: building wire, tray cable, portable cord, control cable, medium voltage. Each family has a different buyer and a different price basis.
- Measure or estimate what is left on each reel, write it on a card and wire the card to the reel. An estimate marked as an estimate is worth far more than no figure at all.
- Coil and band the loose offcuts. Anything below a length a contractor would quote for goes into one shorts box rather than being wound onto a reel.
- Take out everything that is not cable: empty reels, cardboard, straps, conduit offcuts, and the tools that went missing.
- Photograph each finished pallet with a label naming the family and the approximate total footage.
No paperwork is normal: what replaces it
In this category there is rarely a stores list, a packing list or a purchase order. What replaces them is a consistent description and a photograph. A buyer does not need the history of the cable; they need to know what it is and roughly how much of it there is.
Three facts per group carry most of the weight: the construction and size as printed on the jacket, the conductor material, and an approximate total footage. Where the print has gone, a cut end and a tape measure will establish the size, and the insulation type can usually be narrowed from the wall thickness and the way it strips. That is enough to price a pallet.
Storage history is the detail sellers forget and buyers weight heavily. A reel that has been indoors for two years is a different proposition from one that has stood against the fence for two summers, and a coil that came back wet from a job carries the problems described on the water damage page whatever it looks like now.
Trailer stock and the closeout habit
The job trailer is the most under-used source in a contracting business. At closeout, whatever was on the truck comes back and gets put wherever there is space: half reels of the sizes that job used, cut lengths measured for a pull that changed, and a box of connectors nobody has opened since.
Because it all came from one job, it is usually one or two constructions in a few sizes, which makes it the easiest material in the shop to sell well. Keeping closeout stock together, in one labelled crate per job rather than tipped into the general pile, turns a future sorting job into a lot that can be quoted in an afternoon.
The trailer also protects the material in a way the yard cannot. Cable that stays on the truck stays out of the rain, and the tags stay with the reels because nobody has needed the shelf space yet. A contractor who empties the trailer into a labelled crate at closeout, instead of into the corner, gets paid for that habit later.
Specification
What a buyer needs to know about this cable
Every row below changes what a lot is worth. If the reel tag is gone, the jacket print and a cut end usually answer most of it.
Missing detail is not a problem — say what is missing and the review works from photographs.
| Family | Building wire, tray cable, portable cord, control cable or medium voltage |
|---|---|
| Conductor | Copper or aluminum, kept separate at all times |
| Size | Read from the print, or measured at a cut end and recorded in AWG or kcmil |
| Length | Per reel where known, per group where estimated |
| Tag | Factory tag present, print only, or neither |
| Storage | Indoors, in a trailer, or outside in the yard |
| Damage | Crushed wraps, broken flange, jacket damage, water staining |
| Quantity | Number of reels and coils, and the approximate total footage |
Constructions
Leftovers we review
The value in a shop clear-out is concentrated in a few items, and the sort is about finding them.
Part reels of building wire
The bulk of the pile: THHN, THWN and XHHW in several sizes, each a few hundred feet. Tagged reels are worth measuring; untagged ones are worth checking for print.
Coil offcuts
Lengths cut for a pull and never used. Banded and labelled they are saleable; loose and tangled they are scrap, and the difference takes minutes.
Tray cable remnants
TC and TC-ER left from a tray run, often in useful lengths. Usually the best value per pound in a contractor's corner.
Portable cord
SOOW and similar cord on a reel or coiled, from temporary power and equipment connections. Small footage, high unit value, and print usually still readable.
Medium-voltage pigtails
Short shielded lengths from terminations and equipment connections. Worth keeping out of the general pile even at modest lengths.
Mixed gaylords
Whatever was swept up at the end. Priced as recovery unless somebody separates the conductor and the families first.
New York
Contractor leftovers in the New York market
New York contracting is service and renovation heavy, and renovation produces leftovers in a way that new build does not. A job that replaces a feeder in an occupied building uses part of a reel and returns the rest, and the rest accumulates in the shop because throwing away good cable feels wrong.
The geography shapes the habit. Downstate shops work out of small spaces where every square foot is rent, so leftovers get cleared regularly and often sold badly in a hurry. Upstate shops have yards, so material accumulates for years and then leaves as one large, entirely unsorted load. Both are the same material, and both benefit from the same half-day sort.
What helps a New York lot move
- Copper and aluminum separated before anything is quoted
- Factory tags still wired to their reels
- Loose coils banded and labelled with an approximate length
- Non-cable removed from the pallets
- An honest note on where the material has been stored
Seller questions
Questions sellers ask
Is a few hundred feet worth collecting?
It depends entirely on the construction. A few hundred feet of large conductor or medium-voltage cable justifies measuring, photographing and listing. A few hundred feet of small building wire spread across a dozen reels is usually recovery material, and the effort is better spent finding the large reels hiding underneath it.
How do I estimate footage without a cable counter?
Count the wraps on the reel, average the inner and outer coil diameter, multiply by 3.14 and then by the wrap count. For loose coils, weigh them on a pallet scale and divide by the published weight per thousand feet for that construction. Mark the result as approximate, which is all anybody expects from a shop clear-out.
Do you take loose coils with no reel?
Yes, provided they are coiled, banded and labelled with what they are and roughly how long. A loose tangle is priced as scrap because unwinding it costs more than the copper is worth, so a few minutes with a strap and a marker changes what the coil is.
What should not go into the pile?
Empty reels, cardboard, banding, conduit offcuts, tools and anything that is not cable. Also keep out cable that has been in a fire, cable that has stood in flood water, and anything that might contain asbestos; those are handling problems rather than cable, and mixing them in makes a whole load difficult.
Can a shop clear-out be collected at short notice?
Often, once the lot has been described. Photographs of the pallets, the number of reels, the families present and the loading access are enough to schedule a collection. Material that has been sorted in advance loads faster and usually travels better, because somebody has already decided what belongs on which pallet.
Keep reading
Related pages
- Partial reel buyersThe single-reel version of this situation
- Mixed pallet cable buyersWhen the corner has already been boxed up
- Warehouse overstock buyersThe distributor version of the same problem
- THHN and THWN wire buyersMost of what a shop corner holds
- Tray cable buyersThe tray remnants worth finding
- Demolition cable buyersWhere the other half of the leftovers go
Next step
Send the lot details
Include the storage city, how it is stored and what can reach it. If you have photographs of reel tags or jacket print, send them with the enquiry.
Send the lot
One desk reviews every lot that arrives.
Prefer to talk? 614-715-3047 · saleselectricalbuyers@gmail.com