Couple benjamins

 

I'll be honest with you.
We recover the refrigerant while it is still on the roof then call the scrap guy to be there when the crane is there.
They drop it on his flatbed and away he goes.

If I'm lowering a unit for scrap it means that another unit is going up in its place.
I'm rushing to install the transition curb, pass the new thermostat wire, uncrate and remove any shipping material from th new unit.
I then need to wire up the thermostat and install the relief hoods, p-trap, economizer and startup the unit.

When will I find time to strip and transport a unit that big to the scrap yard?

The time it would take to do all that is time I'm losing money.

 

When will I find time to strip and transport a unit that big to the scrap yard?

The time it would take to do all that is time I'm losing money.

If you have all of your tools up on the roof anyways, it shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to cut the coils out of the unit. We'll say it is worth $100 for arguments sake. That means that you must make about $400 per hour and you don't ever have any free time available when you aren't making this kind of money?

If the only way to get a scrap guy to take the unit off of your hands is to have the copper and aluminum still in it, then I can what you are saying making sense. Otherwise, cut out the good stuff, fold it up and find a place to store it, and turn it in when you have time. It's free money.

 

You may want to consider giving it to a local Vo-tech school for them to scrap. The students can learn from it and also the school could use the cash. I have contractors drop off old units to my school and my kids have to remove parts as if they are doing a part replacement so they learn how to remove compressors and fan motors and circuit board.


Just a thought....The school can also give you a tax free donation letter

 

We scrap everything also, and if you don't separate the metals you don't get what it's worth.
I agree, use some free time to rip it apart and enjoy a buck or two.
We have a 60 ton coil going back in a few days and are expecting ribs out of it for everyone.
Thank you scrap.

 

So how far do you go when separating the metal. Do you cut off all the u-bends and remove the tube sheets?

 

I've got a mountain o scrap in my backyard, my wife hates it lol. It looks like trash to her but $$$ to me. I call it yard art.

 

if your do it right 12.5 ton on the average about 300..depending on scrap prices... party money that honey don't know about :cheers:

 

I will give you $50 if you deliver it to my shop... Then it is not your problem...

 

The only reason your having this conversation is he price of copper. The problem a business has with the guys cutting copper is the company never sees the money. I understand a salesman trying to cut a bean seeing workers taking time (money) from the job knowing the money is going in their pocket.
Some companies save it up in their yard, have the guys cut it up in slow times and throw a company picnic or something. At least then all employes benefit.
There are people that put more effort in cutting scrap then the job. I didn't mention blasted cell phones.

 

we had 3 split systems we removed at the college, two were 3ton and a 5 ton, we separated the units and sealed them up for later use somewhere else on campus, but I did get the line sets out of it, had an old 2 ton condenser I cut the coils out of, 15 ton compressor about 4 cannonball compressors, couple fan motors, separated into #1 and #2 copper, electric motors, coils w/o tube sheets, I pocketed about 500 bucks, and I may have spent 2 hours in the garage separating, condenser fan motors off our rtaa's and rtac's are about 15 bucks a piece, buys me lunch a couple days a week, id say its worth it

 

As someone else said, we make arrangements with the scrap man to come when stuff is being moved and drop it on his trailer.

I'm not going to take my boss's time to scrap a unit for my benefit.

If I need an extra hundred bucks I'll work a couple of hours overtime.

We did just cut out a hefty amount of 2 5/8" copper that the boss told me to take to the scrap yard and buy the guys a nice lunch! Thought that was good of him!!

 

your Boss would be a fool to let scrap go away that easy. If your a big shop, and several techs bring it to the yard and on a slow day strip..like someone said xmas party or big lunch..

We changed out a cooling tower 19000 lb... at .. .10 lb ...was well worth the time. 1900 bucks split 4 ways, paid the car payment

 

We always include time to strip apart the old unit in the quote.. The set a helper or first year apprentice to tearing it apart.

 

I just took some scrap in yesterday. I had a condenser coil that I had cut off the tube sheets. They listed it as a radiator and payed $1.35 a lb. I should of left the steel tube sheets on to add to the weight.

 

you wouldn't have gotten the radiator price, you would have gotten mixed metal and paid about .19/lbs. if you wait and get a good enough stock pile and take the time to break it down its worth your while, any condenser fan motors, cut the fan off and they will give you .25/lbs instead of the .19 for mixed metal

 

.25/lbs for electric motor price*

 

An individual scraping will just see a way to shove some cash in their pocket. A business person weighs other things to see where the break even point is. If break even isn't seen or non-existent forget about it. It becomes a dollar chasing a dime. Especially true if scraping interferes with the main objective, job profit.

 

I love scraping. I worked a lot of winters in our scrapyard. I have a personal scrap pile at home also. Since we are banned from side work I have also thought about large scale scrapping of HVAC equipment as a side job. Know of a nice abandoned 250t RTAA close to home that if they said go it would be gone in a day. Kind of relaxing to get to destroy stuff for money.