copper thieves

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bdarnell

Senior Member
Location
Indianapolis, IN
Occupation
Retired Engineer
bikeindy said:
I think you are getting ripped off where are you buying at?

We don't buy from the big boxes, just from the supply houses, but, we don't buy Romex anyway, so it doesn't matter.

This is from Lowes web site this morning:

Romex Simpull
Yellow 12-2 NM 1000' Wire

Item #: 86543 Model: 28828270
$291.00

You can bet that when that stock is gone, the price WILL go up.
 

rinewalt1

New member
Location
jackson, ms
Just did two houses next door to each other. When we were doing the second one we noticed all copper was gone from the attic of the first one and all the service wires were gone. So we rewired the first one and did the second one for a first time. Exactly one week later both houses have been stripped again and this is after sheetrock! now waiting for a fence to be built around neighborhood before rewiring! .
 

bikeindy

Senior Member
Location
Indianapolis IN
bdarnell said:
We don't buy from the big boxes, just from the supply houses, but, we don't buy Romex anyway, so it doesn't matter.

This is from Lowes web site this morning:

Romex Simpull
Yellow 12-2 NM 1000' Wire

Item #: 86543 Model: 28828270
$291.00

You can bet that when that stock is gone, the price WILL go up.

Well you said a lot when you said you don't buy from the big box stores. and you don't use romex. I guess we are not competitors. I buy from the Big Box guys cuz they save me a lot of $ I also buy from the supply houses cuz they have what I need. Got a 1000' spool of 12-2 TODAY $211.60, 14-2 1000' $143.60 I don't think i need to take a pic of the receipt for you. THHN 500' #10 $57.00 #12 Thhn 500' $35.00 the Box stores will save you on these wire items. and I love when one of them is a wee bit higher than another it means match plus 10% off. I do what I can for my bottom line.
 

-marty

Senior Member
Location
Alaska
Home Depot in Anchorage is charging $ 80.00 for 250'12-2

My sister-in-law is big time into copper, she claims China is buying copper in massive quantities. WHY?
 

celtic

Senior Member
Location
NJ
-marty said:
...she claims China is buying copper in massive quantities. WHY?

China Copper Demand Boosts Prices, Empties Warehouses 2/25/04


Breifly - from the story of 2/25/04:
Copper prices reached an eight-year high earlier today, fueled by demand from China, where manufacturers are expanding plants to make home appliances, televisions and cars. China's appetite for raw materials, as its economy expands, is draining inventories elsewhere in the world.

Chile's Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, hasn't shipped any copper to New Orleans in almost a year, instead sending more metal to Asia, Casiano said. Pacorini's warehouses on the Mississippi River held about 90,000 metric tons of copper in January 2002. Now they have 5,000.

Chilean copper ``that used to go to the U.S. goes to China,'' Juan Eduardo Herrera, the corporate vice president of strategy at Codelco, said in an interview in Santiago. The state- owned company produces 35 percent of the nation's copper.

China has accounted for much of the increase in demand. Copper consumption in the country will jump as much as 12 percent this year after a 20 percent gain in 2003, said Andrew Keen, manager of base metals at CRU International, a private research company in London.

China last year consumed a fifth of the copper produced in the world as its economy surged. The nation's industrial production rose 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest pace on record.

Stockpiles in warehouses in Long Beach, California, have dropped 56 percent this year alone. Inventories have declined in warehouses along the West Coast, including Los Angeles, which supplies copper to Asia.

``All the metal in the Long Beach warehouse has gone to China,'' said Tim Strelitz, chief executive of Los Angeles-based California Metal-X Inc., which produces about 3 million pounds of copper-based ingots a month used in making faucets and valves.

Granted, this story is 2 years old...but in the construction business 2 years is not really that long of a time - 2 years equates to one medium sized job.


Here is a more current story:
Copper rises to record on supply worries 5/6/06

Labour disputes, as well as a shortage of equipment and workers, were likely to limit supply for two years, BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company, said yesterday.
 

macmikeman

Senior Member
I will garantee that some speculators are hoarding large batches of romex right now and betting on the rise. That helps to drive it up further. Same type goons turned an avarage house cost in my area from $350k to $780k in less than 1 year. Now the "hot market" is commodity's. Read history. Same type stuff happened just before the big crash in 1920.
 

wyatt2

Member
Location
North Carolina
I wish I could keep up Just started out on my own last month got 4000' of 14-2 to do my first house at $148 a peice 2 weeks later got 1 more roll at $176 The GC wanted me to start another house this mount so I gave him a price. last week on mon. I was at Lowe's and a EC frind was there and he told me to get wire it was going up. He had called and reserved a price at $176 they was posting $198 so he let me buy 3000' with him at his price. then 2 days latter I was there to get something eles and it was $215 I'm a small co. and can't stock up.
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Well, I've finally gotten the snip, too. Pretty lazy thieves, though. They snipped whatever wasn't stapled, that could be reached without a ladder in the basement. So my island GFI, island cooktop (10' of 8/3 NM) and furnace home-run were snipped. Fortunately, the rest was spared.

Question from me: do you backcharge the G.C. for the theft? Should they be held responsible for the material after drywall?

If not, who pays?
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
georgestolz said:
Question from me: do you backcharge the G.C. for the theft? Should they be held responsible for the material after drywall?

If not, who pays?
I was wondering the same thing while still on page 1, but I usually finish threads before responding to avoid repetition. It hasn't happened to me yet (knock on PVC), and I don't know what, if anything, the law says, but here's the position I would take:

Since I get a deposit to start any job that requires leaving material installed at the premises, those materials belong to the customer, i.e., the GC. That even applies to materials not yet installed. It's his property, and it's his responsibility to secure his property against theft.

He's already paid for the materials; he's the victim of the theft, not I. If he want's the material replaced, and the labor re-done, someone has to pay me to do it. If he declines, we're in the same place as if I was asked to halt a job before finishing. That's why we get a deposit.

Except for any final draw we allow for final inspection and/or punchlist time, at any point in the job, we want to be in the position that we owe the customer more in work and/or materials than they owe us in money. As soon as that changes, we could be asked to take a hike.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
We have been told what is installed is on the customer (most likely the GC) Items simply left on the job unsecured awaiting installation are our problem.

The couple of times we have had copper removed from the raceways the GC (or their insurance) paid us for replacement.

From the customers side how would you know what the EC had stock piled on the job and what was really stolen.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
iwire said:
From the customers side how would you know what the EC had stock piled on the job and what was really stolen.

Yeah! We could claim almost anything! :twisted:

"Real people; real cases; Judge Judy"
 
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