Price of copper has sky rocketed

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FrancisDoody

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Location
Durham, CT
I have watched the price of copper sky-rocket lately. Today I was billed $408.00, not including state tax, for a reel of 12/2 NM-B. A coil is selling for the $102.00.

If that is not bad enough driving home I looked over at the Mobil-Exxon gas prices and saw 89 octane selling for $3.15 a gallon. That was at a station that is considered one of the cheaper stations in this area.

The price of materials and fuel rising so quickly will have to take a tool on construction soon or later
 
Locking up my shed and hiring armed guard.Actually i have an armed guard in the house but never thought it would get this bad.Last time i looked 12-2 was like $56 for 250
 
I was in the Wellington FL Lowes today looking for some batteries and noticed 12-2 was $54/coil.
 
It's getting to the point where you'll have to check copper prices before estimating every job, even the little ones. You can't even say that your estimates are good for 30 days without taking a risk. A 125' coil of 6/3 RX cost me over $200 last week.

In the past I was giving my scrap copper to friends who were bringing it to the scrap yard for a few $$$. I didn't have any place to store the scraps. I just found out that one scrap yard was giving $1.62/lb for clean scrap. I just found a place to store the scrap wire !!!
 
Capital Bag and Waste at the port of Albany in upstate NY was paying $2/lb for stripped copper back in Dec/Jan. $.60/lb for stripped AL wire.

The prices at Palm Beach are terrible.
 
goldstar said:
It's getting to the point where you'll have to check copper prices before estimating every job, even the little ones. You can't even say that your estimates are good for 30 days without taking a risk. A 125' coil of 6/3 RX cost me over $200 last week.

In the past I was giving my scrap copper to friends who were bringing it to the scrap yard for a few $$$. I didn't have any place to store the scraps. I just found out that one scrap yard was giving $1.62/lb for clean scrap. I just found a place to store the scrap wire !!!
Click to expand...

Up untill a few months ago i never bothered with the scrap but i sure do now.Clean was at $2 and over $1 for unstriped #12

Reason lowes and big orange are cheaper is likely because they have plenty in inventory,load up now
 
Cleaned out my old barn this weekend. Took some old scrap steel and tin to the scrap yard. They were buying #1 Copper for $2.50 per pound. Everybody keep an eye on your scrap copper bin. The copper will grow legs and walk off!
 
just hauled a load of scrap copper to Denver insulation still on got $2.35 per pound. Also got two Pit bulls to protect scrap pile.
 
Over the weekend somebody stole the brass flush valves from over a hundred beach park restroom toilets on Oahu. Also the streetlights in rural areas are going dark from crooks stealing the wire right out of the conduits feeding the lights. It is truly nuts out there nowadays.
 
I gutted a marina about a month ago. Took about 1700 lbs of clean copper to the scrap yard and got $2,400. I wish I had held out for a month, could have gotten another $1,700 for it! GEESH!
 
I just heard a story yesterday about a local contractor here that went home for the day after having almost finished a residential rough-in. Next morning he showed up for work and all his romex had been torn from the building interior and was gone!
 
Bought 12/2 nm last week was 78.00 250 coil. spoke to another electrician today and he just paid 112.00. The supply house is only giving price quates till end of day. I remember when I paid 18.00 coil 12/2 :(
 
Copper ? May 16, 14:33
Bid/Ask 3.7779 - 3.7960
Change +0.0136 +0.36%
Low/High 3.7643 - 3.7960

It's only going up. Now's a good time to have stock in Peruvian copper. :roll:
 
Big orange was $89 today here.I would be sure that the GC has everything i installed covered by insurance.Theft will soon be a real problem.Most places will want to see ID so that might help some
 
i just checked one big box store for 12-2 romax in a kilofoot spool cost almost 400 euros !! Jezz ,, i think the price will still climb up.

just off the point for a sec the Plummers are hitting pretty hard as well with their copper tubeing [ pipes ] etc someone did mention just a stick of 1/2 inch [ 13 mm ] cost is 95 bucks :shock:

but just wait there more many manufacters did raise the price for their electrical related item espcally with HID Ballast which they have copper wire wounded on the core and the ditto with transformer as well.


really in fact i dont think we will see the price stop going up anytime soon


Merci , Marc
 
We rented a Conex for the shop a few months ago. Our wire was disappearing like crazy. I have to chuckle about the brass flush valves. Yep, they're going to have to start securing the houses before roughing in the electrical anymore. It's only going to get worse.

We've started puting clauses in our bids on wire prices. A few of the large jobs in Seattle, the EC's have backed out of their bids because of the crazy price of copper. Can't say that I blame them. They'd go broke if they took the rising price among themselves.
 
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