When do you stop buying a full roll and do cut lengths for locally stocked wire

For romex and ser when do you stop buying cut length and go for a full roll?

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  • 8awg

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  • 4awg

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My supply house prices are the same for full roll vs cut lengths. Unless I know I'm going to burn through it, I only bought cut lengths for anything over #10. I hate buying anything but full 250' rolls at "Big Box" as their cut prices are high. Even worse if buying their small rolls, such as 50', 100'. The lengths are never right for the amount I need plus the ridiculous price. Only thing my S/H doesn't cut is MC cable, coax, and Cat5. I would never buy it like that, but they even cut 12-2. I didn't even know that until I was there one day and a guy came in and bought 10'!:rolleyes:
 
1 supply house around here will cut 10-2 or 10-3. None have ever cut 12 or 14 that I know of. That's a big help to the little guy who is on a shoestring. Decent of them.
 
AC\DC said:
Do you think cut lengths are better for waist??.
I do not like taking time to measure accurately then pulling wire . I would rather just set reel up and doing it once. May have waist at end is only problem
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Cut lengths make some sense when you are utilizing a cable or conductor size or type that you tend to rarely use and don't want to have to have the remainder of the reel in your own inventory for a fairly undetermined amount of time.
 
junkhound said:
I do not recall ever buying by the foot, except once when out of 3/0 for a service (and low on cash at the time also) and bought 27 ft of 4/0 aluminum for convenience once.

Now, got a good deal on metal sheathed 3 conductor 250 MCM at an auction once upon a time, still have the 1000 ft spool in storage.
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Big box stores you purchase by the package, exception for items they do cut and sell by foot but those are fairly limited.

Supply house you purchase by the unit, usually the foot for wire and cable. Even items they won't cut. Purchase 250 foot hand coil of NM cable they itemize it on your sales receipt/invoice as 250 feet at a per foot price. It possibly is same or very close to same price per foot as a 1000 foot reel as well. Purchase an item that they will cut and it likely has higher cost per foot than an uncut package.
 
kwired said:
Big box stores you purchase by the package, exception for items they do cut and sell by foot but those are fairly limited.

Supply house you purchase by the unit, usually the foot for wire and cable. Even items they won't cut. Purchase 250 foot hand coil of NM cable they itemize it on your sales receipt/invoice as 250 feet at a per foot price. It possibly is same or very close to same price per foot as a 1000 foot reel as well. Purchase an item that they will cut and it likely has higher cost per foot than an uncut package.
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Non of mine are more for 1 ft than 1000. After that they'll do a quote and shop the price since it's something they'd bring in for me but I haven't done any big developments or apartment complexes lately.
 
I appreciated 10-2 and 10-3 by the foot as a roll was pretty high and I had periods of little work. 10-3 especially, mainly used for dryers. 10-2 was OK in a busy time, would do a few water heaters & AC's, a few stovetops, etc.
 
Retired & thought I was reading sticker wrong maybe two years ago when 12/2 NM cable was $250 for a 250' coil. Anyway years ago the cut off point for say #2 copper THHW was approximately equal if I purchased a 500' to the price of supply house cut around 380'. For the couple of minutes that it took me to cut wire it was like getting 120' of wire for free. Can remember the good old days back in the early 1960's going to the supply house with my dad and aluminum #2 SEU cable was only 33¢ a foot for at least 3 years and a coil of 14/2 NM cable maybe $10 to $12.
 
The pandemic was the only time in my career that the consideration has been the opposite. Pretty sure at all other times the nominal cost has gone up even when the real cost went down. So I stick with 'not likely'.
 
Usually won't buy bulk roll on anything above #12 NM, just won't go through a large enough amount on any single job of the larger sizes.
My question would be does anyone compare big box prices to supply house when charging customers?
Usually my supply house gives me a better price than big box. And customers baulk about a price markup much above the price at big box, but I can usually markup to the smallest quantity per unit price from big box to get my markup.
Big box will charge way more per unit for a 25ft roll than for a 250ft roll. Interesting thing I've seen at big box is that they charge more for the 1000ft than for a 250ft roll NM per unit.
 
Fred B said:
Big box will charge way more per unit for a 25ft roll than for a 250ft roll. Interesting thing I've seen at big box is that they charge more for the 1000ft than for a 250ft roll NM per unit.
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When I have compared them, they were to the penny the same price per foot.

Kinda like Waffle House: Full meals are the exact total of the a la carte prices.
 
LarryFine said:
When I have compared them, they were to the penny the same price per foot.

Kinda like Waffle House: Full meals are the exact total of the a la carte prices.
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Big blue current pricing per ft for 12/2 NM-B at my local.
1000ft $.428/ft
250ft $.432/ft
100ft $.80/ft
50ft $1.28/ft
15ft $2.73/ft

my supply house
1000ft $.401/ft
 
Fred B said:
Big blue current pricing per ft for 12/2 NM-B at my local.
1000ft $.428/ft
250ft $.432/ft
100ft $.80/ft
50ft $1.28/ft
15ft $2.73/ft

my supply house
1000ft $.401/ft
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I was only comparing 250' and 1000' rolls. Let me look at 12-2 at HD today.

Same prices as yours. To me, it's not worth lugging a 1000' spool to save $4.00.

And, as always, it's not worth buying smaller than 250ft ever.

1000' = $428.00 = 0.428 ft
250' = $108.00 = 0.432 ft
100' = $ 80.00 = 0.80 ft
50' = $ 64.00 = 1.28 ft
25' = $ 51.00 = 2.04 ft
15' = $ 41.00 = 2.73 ft
 
LarryFine said:
I was only comparing 250' and 1000' rolls. Let me look at 12-2 at HD today.

Same prices as yours. To me, it's not worth lugging a 1000' spool to save $4.00.

And, as always, it's not worth buying smaller than 250ft ever.

1000' = $428.00 = 0.428 ft
250' = $108.00 = 0.432 ft
100' = $ 80.00 = 0.80 ft
50' = $ 64.00 = 1.28 ft
25' = $ 51.00 = 2.04 ft
15' = $ 41.00 = 2.73 ft
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So when charging the wire out to customer, how close do you get to the 15ft costs? Or is it similar to the big box that the smaller the quantity the higher the price per unit?
 
Fred B said:
So when charging the wire out to customer, how close do you get to the 15ft costs? Or is it similar to the big box that the smaller the quantity the higher the price per unit?
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I'm not that specific when pricing non-specific items. I just make sure I charge more than I paid.
 
LarryFine said:
I was only comparing 250' and 1000' rolls. Let me look at 12-2 at HD today.

Same prices as yours. To me, it's not worth lugging a 1000' spool to save $4.00.

And, as always, it's not worth buying smaller than 250ft ever.

1000' = $428.00 = 0.428 ft
250' = $108.00 = 0.432 ft
100' = $ 80.00 = 0.80 ft
50' = $ 64.00 = 1.28 ft
25' = $ 51.00 = 2.04 ft
15' = $ 41.00 = 2.73 ft
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Glad that I'm retired after seeing to what appears to still be high price. Never purchase anything under 250' for #14 to #10 but charging $41 for 15' of 12/2 is a crime. Sure all the big box stores that sell cuts under 250' are cut & wrapped by a fairly fast machine. My brother in law worked at a large refrigeration supply house that had over a dozen branches. They hired a person to just bag & tag hardware & small fittings. Told me they made a fortune selling small overpriced items.
 
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